This blog will be a little all over the place so I do apologise. I purchased my tickets to the 2008 Australian Gymnastics Championships - I am off to every single session... dedication I know. Anyways I was looking on the official Beijing Olympics page and came across the Hall Of Fame and am curious as to how they selected the entries. Any guesses? The entries include:
MAG:
Nikolay Andrianov- (Soviet) Most medals won by a man in any sport (15) and the most medals in individual events (12)
G.Alberto Braglia- Italian gymnast who became the "Human Torpedo".
Aleksandr Dityatin - The Soviet gymnast "first appeared at the Olympics in 1976, winning a silver medal in the gymnastics team event. He also placed fourth in the individual all-around event, missing a medal by only five hundredths of a point. In Montréal, Dityatin qualified for two apparatus finals, earning a silver medal on the rings and placing sixth on the pommel horse. Competing before a hometown crowd in Moscow at the 1980 Olympics, Dityatin led the Soviet Union to the team championship and then won the individual all-around title. He also qualified for all six apparatus finals. On 25 July, 1980, Dityatin won six medals in one day, taking the gold on the rings and silvers on the horizontal bar, parallel bars and pommel horse and in the vault event. He also earned a bronze medal in the floor exercise. Dityatin is the athlete in Olympic history to win eight medals in one Olympic Games. He was also the first male gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of ten in an Olympic competition, a feat he accomplished in the long horse vault."
Georges Miez-"Georges Miez began his long and distinguished Olympic career as a 19-year-old at the 1924 Paris Games. Although he took part in nine different events, including the rope climb, his only medal, a bronze, came as a member of the Swiss squad in the team combined exercises. He also placed fifth on the horizontal bar. By 1928, however, Miez was the world's leading gymnast. He overcame a poor performance on the parallel bars to win the individual all-around title, and he also earned gold medals on the horizontal bar and in the team event, as Switzerland edged out Czechoslovakia in a close contest. Miez won a silver medal on the pommel horse, finishing just behind his Swiss teammate, Hermann Hänggi. He also placed fourth in the long horse vault and eighth on the rings. Miez traveled to Los Angeles for the 1932 Olympics, but because he was the only Swiss gymnast to do so, he was limited in the events he could enter. He ended up competing only in the floor exercises, earning a silver medal. In 1936, Miez, already 31 years old, participated in his fourth Olympics, and he won a gold medal in the floor exercises, a silver in the team event and placed eighth in the side horse vault. This brought his career medal total to eight: four gold, three silver and one bronze. Miez devoted the rest of his long life to the promotion of gymnastics as a sport."
Vitaly Scherbo: "At the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, 20-year-old gymnast Vitaly Shcherbo of Minsk made history with his gold medal-winning ways. He began by leading the squad from the ex-Soviet Union to victory in the team event. Next he put together a superb and consistent performance to win in the individual all-around competition title. Then, on 2 August, Shcherbo took part in the individual apparatus finals. He won the parallel bars, the vault and the rings and tied for first place on the pommel horse to become the first person in Olympic history to win four gold medals in one day. Shcherbo was also the first gymnast to win six gold medals in one Olympics. He returned to the Games in 1996 and earned four bronze medals: in the all-around competition, the horizontal bars, the parallel bars and vault events."
Carl Schumann - "Carl Schumann representing Germany won three events in gymnastics (individual horse vault and horizontal bar and parallel bars team competitions) un 1896. He also won the Greco-Roman wrestling tournament in a major upset. Schumann also competed in three events in athletics (long jump, triple jump and shot put) and in weightlifting."
Leon Stukelj- "Leon Štukelj, a lawyer from Novo Mesto, was the reigning world champion in gymnastics when he entered the Olympics for the first time in 1924. At the Paris Games, competing for Yugoslavia, he used his high score on the horizontal bar to win the gold medal in the all-around event by edging Robert Pražak of Czechoslovakia by .017 points. Štukelj earned a second gold medal in the horizontal bar contest and placed fourth in the long horse vault, the rings and the team events. In 1928, he added to his medal haul with bronze medals in the all-around and team events, while taking another gold, this time on the rings. He also tied for seventh on the parallel bars. Štukelj skipped the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles, but he returned in 1936 and, at the age of 37, he won a silver medal on the rings, to bring his career Olympic medal total to six. In 1992, when he was 93 years old, Štukelj attended the Opening Ceremony of the Barcelona Olympics and watched as athletes from Slovenia marched behind their own flag for the first time. Four years later, he was honored at the Atlanta Opening Ceremony and amazed the crowd by bounding onto the stage at the age of 97. He died four days before his 101st birthday."
Boris Shakhlin - "Boris Shakhlin of the Soviet Union won six gold medals in individual gymnastic events, which remains an Olympic best for men, bettered only by Vera Caslavska. Between 1956 and 1964, he won a total of 13 medals (seven gold, four silver, two bronze) with his strongest individual event being the pommelled horse in which he won gold in 1960 and 1964. His 13 Olympic medals was a record for men until it was bettered by fellow Soviet gymnast Nikolay Andrianov. He also won a total of 14 medals at the World Championships. Shakhlin won four individual titles at the 1958 World Championships: all-around, horizontal bar, parallel bars, and pommelled horse. Unusually tall for a gymnast, his height and reach were a distinct advantage on the horizontal bar but caused him difficulty on the floor exercise."
WAG:
Vera Caslavska - Czechoslovakian gymnast. "After winning three gold medals and one silver medal at the 1964 Tokyo Games, Vera Caslavska was the favourite to repeat her success in 1968. In April she had signed the "Manifesto of 2000 Words," which rejected Soviet involvement in Czechoslovakia. Two months before the Olympics, Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. Warned by friends that she was in danger of being arrested, Caslavska fled to the mountains. In hiding, she kept in shape by swinging from tree limbs and practicing her floor exercise in a meadow. After three weeks, the government allowed her to join the rest of the team in Mexico City. There Caslavska successfully defended her all-around and vault titles and added two more gold medals and two silvers. Hugely popular with Mexican fans, she added to her popularity by marrying fellow Olympian Josef Odlozil in a ceremony in Mexico City. After the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia, Caslavska served as president of the Czech Olympic Committee and, later, as a member of the International Olympic Committee."
Nadia Comaneci - Romanian gymnast - surely everyone interested in gymnastics is familiar with Nadia?
Olga Korbut- "Of all the 7,173 athletes who competed at the 1972 Munich Olympics, none captured the public imagination like 17-year-old Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut. During the team competition she caused a sensation with her spectacular routine on the uneven parallel bars. As Korbut later recalled, "It was amazing. One day, I was a nobody, and the next day, I was a star."

Halfway through the individual final two days later, disaster struck. Korbut committed three errors on the uneven bars. The judges gave her a score of 7.5 and she wept with disappointment as she dropped to seventh place. Twenty hours later, Korbut regained her form in time for the individual apparatus finals.

She earned gold medals on the balance beam and for the floor exercise and a silver medal on the uneven bars. Back home in Grodno, Belarus, Korbut received so much fan mail - 20,000 letters in one year - that the post office had to assign a special clerk to sort her mail. In 1976, Korbut won a gold medal in the team competition and a silver on the balance beam."