Larisa Latynina

1. Larisa Latynina By Bykovchenko I rina

2. Larisa Semyonovna Latynina   (born 27 December 1934) is a former Soviet gymnast. Between 1956 and 1964 she won 14 individual Olympic medals and four team medals. Her total of 18 Olympic medals was a record for 48 years until surpassed by American swimmer Michael Phelps on July 31, 2012. Although Phelps broke her total medal count record, her record for individual event medals (14) still stands. She is credited with helping to establish the Soviet Union as a dominant force in gymnastics .

3. Early life Born as  Larisa Semyonovna Diriy  in Ukraine, she first practiced ballet, but turned to gymnastics after her choreographer moved out of Kherson. She graduated from high school in 1953 and moved to Kiev to attend the Lenin Polytechnic Institute and continue training, where she trained at the Burevestnik  Voluntary Sports Society. At the age of 19, she debuted internationally at the 1954 Rome World Championships, winning the gold medal in the team competition.

4. Gymnastics career At the 1956 Summer Olympics, she competed with  Ágnes Keleti  of Hungary to become the most successful gymnast of the Olympics. Latynina beat Keleti in the all-around event, and the Soviet team also won the team event. In the event finals, Latynina won gold medals on the floor (shared with Keleti ) and vault, a silver medal on the uneven bars, and a bronze medal in the now discontinued team event with portable apparatus. Keleti also won six medals: four golds and two silvers.

5. After a very successful World Championships in 1958 (winning five out of six titles despite competing whilst four months pregnant), Latynina was the favorite for the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. In the all-around event she led the Soviet Union to take the first four places, thereby also securing a win in the team competition by a margin of nine points. Latynina defended her floor title, took silver medals in the balance beam and uneven bars events, and bronze in the vault competition .

6. Retirement Latynina retired after the 1966 World Championships and became a coach for the Soviet national gymnastics team, a position she held until 1977.Under her coaching the Soviet women won team gold in the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympics .  She organized the gymnastics competition at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.

7. I have a lot of respect for this woman, because she herself has had such success in life.