1964 Tokyo Olympic Games

1964 Tokyo Olympic Games
	; Official logo
City	Tokyo, Japan
Venue	Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium
Team Gold Medalist	USSR Polina Astakhova; Ludmila Gromova; Larisa Latynina; Tamara Manina; Elena Volchetskaya; Tamara Zamotaylova;
All-Around Gold Medalist	Věra Čáslavská (TCH)
Vault Gold Medalist	Věra Čáslavská (TCH)
Uneven Bars Gold Medalist	Polina Astakhova (USSR)
Balance Beam Gold Medalist	Věra Čáslavská (TCH)
Floor Exercise	Larisa Latynina (USSR)
Preceded by	1960 Rome Olympic Games
Succeeded by	1968 Mexico City Olympic Games

The 1964 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Tokyo, Japan in 1964. Tokyo had been awarded the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subsequently passed to Helsinki because of Japan's invasion of China, before ultimately being canceled because of World War II. The 1964 Summer Games were the first Olympics held in Asia, and the first time South Africa was barred from taking part due to its apartheid system in sports. These games were also the first to be telecast internationally without the need for tapes to be flown overseas as in the case of the 1960 Olympics four years earlier.

Tokyo would also host the World Championships in 2011.

Format of Competition[]

The scoring in all the events was basically the same, as for gymnastics events at the 1960 Summer Olympics. Each country was allowed to enter a team of eight gymnasts, but in contrast to the previous Olympics not more than six of them were allowed to participate in all exercises. Nations with incomplete teams, could enter one to three gymnasts for the individual competition. Six best gymnasts on the apparatus in the team competition (by sum of two scores - for compulsory and optional routine) qualified for that apparatus finals. The new feature of the competition was in women's events: each of them was judged by four judges. The highest and lowest marks were dropped and an average of two remaining marks constituted the score.

The scoring in the team competition was different from the one at the previous Olympics, its principle became the same: five best scores constituted the team's score for the routine; these scores constituted the overall team's totals.

Competition Schedule[]

August 29	Compulsory Round
August 31	Optional Round
September 2	All-Around
September 8	Vault Event Final
September 9	Uneven Bars Event Final
September 10	Balance Beam Event Final
September 11	Floor Exercise Event Final

Results[]

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Team	USSR Polina Astakhova Ludmila Gromova Larisa Latynina Tamara Manina Elena Volchetskaya Tamara Zamotaylova	File:800px-Flag of the Czech Republic.png Czechoslovakia Věra Čáslavská Marianna Krajčírová Jana Posnerová Hana Růžičková Jaroslava Sedláčková Adolfína Tkačíková	Japan Aihara Toshiko Chiba Ginko Tanaka Keiko Nakamura Taniko Ono Kiyoko Tsuji Hiroko
All-Around	File:800px-Flag of the Czech Republic.png Věra Čáslavská Czechoslovakia (TCH)	Larisa Latynina Soviet Union (USSR)	Polina Astakhova Soviet Union (USSR)
Vault	File:800px-Flag of the Czech Republic.png Věra Čáslavská Czechoslovakia (TCH)	Larisa Latynina Soviet Union (USSR) Birgit Radochla Germany (EUA)	N/A
Uneven Bars	Polina Astakhova Soviet Union (USSR)	Katalin Makray Hungary (HUN)	Larisa Latynina Soviet Union (USSR)
Balance Beam	File:800px-Flag of the Czech Republic.png Věra Čáslavská Czechoslovakia (TCH)	Tamara Manina Soviet Union (USSR)	Larisa Latynina Soviet Union (USSR)
Floor Exercise	Larisa Latynina Soviet Union (USSR)	Polina Astakhova Soviet Union (USSR)	Anikó Ducza Hungary (HUN)

Notable Moments[]

Czechoslovakia's Věra Čáslavská became the second gymnast to follow a World All-Around title with and Olympic All-Around title, after Larisa Latynina.
USSR's Larisa Latynina set a World record of most Olympic medals won, with 18 total. This record stood until 2012, when American swimmer Michael Phelps won 22 medals in three Olympics. Latynina also became the first gymnast to medal in three consecutive Olympics and the first gymnast to win three straight Olympic titles on a single event (floor exercise).

Medal Count[]

Rank	Country				Total
1	USSR	3	4	3	10
2	File:800px-Flag of the Czech Republic.png Czechoslovakia	3	1	0	4
3	Hungary	0	1	1	2
4	Germany	0	1	0	1
5	Japan	0	0	1	1