Why they rank here
The only woman to win the Olympic all-around title twice in the modern era before Simone Biles, taking it in Tokyo in 1964 and again in Mexico City in 1968, and the only gymnast to win an individual Olympic gold on every apparatus of her time. She finished with 11 Olympic medals — seven gold and four silver — and world all-around titles in 1962 and 1966, breaking a Soviet monopoly almost single-handedly. Her 1968 campaign is the most extraordinary in the sport's history: she had signed the Two Thousand Words manifesto, fled to the mountains of Moravia after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and trained by swinging on tree branches and doing floor work in a meadow, then arrived in Mexico City and won four golds. On the podium for the shared beam and floor titles she turned her head down and away during the Soviet anthem, a protest that cost her the right to travel and compete for years afterwards.
Career profile
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