Gymnastics as we know it today was the one practised by Larissa Latynina. The dance on the floor, the feminility up on the beam, it was all Latynina's work.
How could a 12 year-old girl start gymnastics and evolve into such a great level I will never know, even though competitive gymnastics was not at the level we know today.
She was born on December 27th, 1934, in Kherson.
She was a beautiful dancer, as far as I'm concerned, but by then gymnastics were the main sport in schools of the Soviet Union and Germany. Besides, she grew up in a very nasty time, just as the World War II was happening. However, USSR won the war, Poland was anexed and her country was the biggest on Earth. The Government took the control of everything, sport was one of the areas. And young Larissa showed a great potential. She'd had already practised ballet, but her school thought it would be better for her to start training to compete.
So there she went, happily or not it didn't matter, to the guidence of Alexander Mishakov, who also trained World and Olympic champion Boris Shakhlin.
She started in the 1955 World Championships, taking the gold with the team - already a potence - and placed 5th on the floor exercise.
At the age of 23 she was in the Melbourne Olympics, 1956. There, she was astounding.
Placing 1st with her team, as expected, she took 1st in the all around, Floor exercise, Vault, and 2nd on the Uneven Bars.
In the following year, at the Europeans, she won every single event - Team, all around, Beam, Vault, Uneven Bars and Floor.
Very much the team leader, she went to the World Championship, repeating what she'd accomplished in the precedent year, only losing the Floor, gaining the silver on that piece.
In Rome she successfuly defended her titles on the all around and Floor. She was third on Vault and 2nd, again, on Bars.
She went to competitions practicaly to win; defending World and European champion, she retained her titles with ease.
But in 1964 the 2-month pregnant Empress fell to a Checoslovakian.
Fortunatly for Larissa, her team was only followed by Vera's. But it was a main rivalry, and both struggled to get the individual titles. Cáslavká was a bit better, winning Beam and Vault.
In the European Championships, Latynina was the big defeated, getting all 2nd places and a 3rd on Vault.
Larissa knew it was her time to retire when in the 1966 Worlds she placed 11th all around, getting one single (gold) medal with her team. It was the end of the competition for 33 year-old Latynina, but she was invited to coach the National Team, job she kept until 1976.
During that time, the only gymnast to medal in all apparatus in two Olympics and the medal record holder in any sport led stars like Olga Korbut, Natalya Kuchinskaya, Zinaida Voronina, Ludmila Turisheva and Nelli Kim through their road to victory.
But when the USSR government blamed her for the victory of a non-soviet gymnast in 1976, accusing her of irresponsability, she quitted her job and shortly after went to the USA.
She now coaches in a gym, and in 1985 was inducted to the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame.