Alexander Dityatin

Aleksandr Dityatin
Personal information
Born	(1957-08-07) 7 August 1957 Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Gymnastics career
Discipline	Men's artistic gymnastics
Country represented	Soviet Union
Retired	Yes
Medal record Olympic Games 1980 Moscow Team 1980 Moscow All-around 1980 Moscow Rings 1976 Montreal Team 1976 Montreal Rings 1980 Moscow Pommel horse 1980 Moscow Vault 1980 Moscow Parallel bars 1980 Moscow Horizontal bar 1980 Moscow Floor Exercise World Championships 1979 Ft. Worth Team competition 1979 Ft. Worth All-around 1979 Ft. Worth Vault 1979 Ft. Worth Still rings 1981 Moscow Team competition 1981 Moscow Parallel bars 1981 Moscow Still rings 1978 Strasbourg Team competition 1978 Strasbourg Still rings 1978 Strasbourg All-around 1978 Strasbourg Floor exercise 1979 Ft. Worth Horizontal bar European Championships 1979 Essen Pommel horse 1979 Essen Still rings 1975 Bern Parallel bars 1979 Essen Parallel bars 1975 Bern All-around 1975 Bern Still rings

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Dityatin (Russian: Александр Николаевич Дитятин, born 7 August 1957) is a retired Russian gymnast, three-time Olympic champion, and Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR. Winning eight medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics, he set the record for achieving the most medals of any type at a single Olympic Games. The American swimmer Michael Phelps has now twice equalled this record, at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. Dityatin competed for the Leningrad Dinamo sports society.

Biography

Dityatin was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) on 7 August 1957. At the age of 15, he was given special dispensation to take part in the senior USSR championships. Two years later, he won the Spartakiades in USSR, an event which was followed by a growth crisis in which he grew 12 cm in one year. At the age of 18, as part of the national team, he came third in the European championships, which were won outright by compatriot Nikolai Andrianov.

Dityatin's first Olympic success was at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he won two silver medals: on the rings and in the team competition. At the 1980 Summer Olympics, after years of being second to teammate Andrianov, 22-year-old Dityatin won a record eight medals in the Moscow Games where he won the all-around title and seven more medals, including two golds to add to his historic achievement of the perfect 10, a feat which had only been recorded by Romania's Nadia Comaneci and the Soviet Union's Nellie Kim in the Olympic Games by then. Shortly after the 1980 Olympics, Dityatin was seriously injured while training, which ended his career. He was the most successful athlete at the 1980 Summer Olympics. As of 2017, he is the only athlete who won a medal in each of the eight gymnastics events at one Olympics.

To add more to the impressiveness of his performance at the 1980 Olympics, not only did he medal in every event, which, of course, suggests an excellent standard of performance throughout the entire competition, but throughout his 24 performances (the maximum # of performances a male gymnast can have throughout an Olympics), he scored no lower than a 9.800 out of 10 throughout those 24 performances, and on 18 of those performances, his score was at least a 9.900.

Dityatin is the first 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.

Dityatin graduated from Leningrad Lesgaft Institute of Physical Education. He was awarded Order of the Badge of Honor (1976), and Order of Lenin (1980, for guarding the State Border of the USSR). Between 1980 and 1995, Dityatin was the head coach of a sports team from Leningrad (Leningrad OKPP).

In 2004, Dityatin was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

The annual Alexander Dityatin Cup competition is held in his honor in Russia.

Achievements (non-Olympic)

Year	Event	AA	Team	FX	PH	RG	VT	PB	HB
1975	European Championships	3rd				3rd		2nd
	World Cup	3rd
	USSR Championships	1st			1st			2nd	2nd
	USSR Cup	1st
1976	USSR Championships				1st	3rd
	USSR Cup	3rd
1977	USSR Championships						3rd	2nd
	University Games						2nd
	USSR Cup	3rd
1978	World Championships	3rd	2nd	3rd		2nd
	World Cup	1st		3rd	2nd	1st	3rd		3rd
	USSR Championships					1st		2nd	3rd
1979	World Championships	1st	1st			1st	1st		3rd
	World Cup	1st				1st	2nd	2nd	2nd
	European Championships				1st	1st		2nd
	USSR Championships	1st		3rd	2nd	1st	2nd	2nd	3rd
1980	USSR Cup	1st
1981	World Championships		1st			1st		1st

See also

• List of multiple Summer Olympic medalists
• List of multiple Olympic medalists at a single Games
• Perfect 10 (gymnastics)

References

This article contains information from the website http://www.gymnast.ru/, incorporated into the Wikipedia with permission from its author E. V. Avsenev.

External links

• Alexander Dityatin at the International Gymnastics Federation
• Alexander Dityatin at the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame
• Alexander Dityatin at Gymn Forum
• Aleksandr Dityatin at Olympics.com
• Aleksandr Dityatin at Olympedia (archive)