born December 27, 1934, Kherson, Ukraine, U.S.S.R.
![Larisa Latynina performing on the balance beam during the gymnastics competition at the 1956 …[Credits : © AFP/Getty Images]](http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/37/84637-003-340C2479.gif)
Soviet gymnast who was the first woman athlete to win nine Olympic gold medals.
At the 1956 Games in Melbourne, Australia, Latynina, who was educated at the Kiev State Institute of Physical Culture, won the women’s competition in the combined exercises, the vault, and the floor exercise (in which she tied for first place). At the 1960 Olympics in Rome she again placed first in the combined and the floor exercise, and in Tokyo in 1964 she captured her third consecutive gold medal in the floor exercise.
One of the most-decorated Olympic athletes, Latynina also won gold medals as a member of the Soviet Union’s six-member women’s gymnastics team in 1956, 1960, and 1964. She also was awarded five silver and four bronze medals in those three Games. After retirement from competition Latynina was a teacher and national senior coach and was active in the planning of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.
If you think a reference to this article on "Larisa Semyonovna Latynina" will enhance your Web site,
blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article,
and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.
You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.