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Golden Olympic Moments – Gymnastics – Floor Exercise (Men)

Published on November 29, 2011 by eddiego65 in Sports

Great Olympic champions on floor exercise of men’s artistic gymnastics competition.

Nikolai Andrianov (USSR) – 1972 Munich & 1976 Montreal

At the 1976 Montreal, Nikolai Andrianov successfully defended his floor title from 1972 Munich Games. He dominated the gymnastics competition by winning four golds (all-around, floor exercise, rings and vault), two silvers (team and parallel bars) and a bronze (pommel horse).

Sergei Kharkov (USSR) – 1988 Seoul

Sergei Kharkov snatched the gold medal from his compatriot and all-around champion Vladimir Artemov with a near perfect but difficult floor routine.

Li Xiaoshuang (China) – 1992 Barcelona

The talented but relatively unknown 18-year old Li Xiaoshuang captured the floor title mainly attributable to the rare triple-back somersault he executed for his first tumbling pass. Truly awesome.

Ioannis Melissanidis (Greece) – 1996 Atlanta

19-year old Ioannis Melissanidis was the surprise floor exercise victor with a score of 9.850, winning over all-around and defending floor champion Li Xiaoshuang, and 3-time world floor titlist Vitaly Scherbo (Belarus). The win marked the first ever Olympics gymnastics medal for Greece.

Igors Vihrovs (Latvia) – 2000 Sydney

Igors Vihrovs defeated the all-around champion Alexei Nemov (Russia) to win Latvia its first Olympic gold medal ever.

Kyle Shewfelt (Canada) – 2004 Athens

The golden effort of Kyle Shewfelt was the first medal ever by a Canadian in any artistic gymnastics competition and the first Canadian gold of the 2004 Games.