Portugal Colonial - Comaneci's perfect 10, Scherbo's golden Barcelona, Biles' 'twisties'

Alberto Braglia - London 1908

The first athlete to put gymnastics on the map was self-taught in a barn in his native Modena in Italy. Taking time-out from his job at a tobacco factory Braglia lit up the floor in the men's all around in 1908. After London he was forced to earn a crust as 'The Bullet Man', paid stunt work that led to a ban from the Italian gymnastics federation. His amateur status restored, and recovery from a deep depression triggered by the death of his four-year-old son, Braglia returned as the Italian flag bearer to defend his title at Stockholm 1912, adding a third gold in the team all-around. A stint in the circus -- he performed for the British Royal family at Buckingham Palace -- followed. He made his last Olympic appearance as coach of the victorious Italian team at Los Angeles in 1932. Modena's football stadium was named in his honour in 1957.

Vera Caslavska - Mexico 1968

A former ice-skater and secretary Caslavska turned up in Mexico in the shadow of political turmoil back home in the then Czechoslovakia. Her public opposition to the Soviet invasion to crush the Prague Spring forced her to complete her training for the '68 Games in a remote mountain hideout, using potato sacks as weights, logs as beams, and swinging from trees to keep supple. Granted permission to travel to Mexico only at the last minute she defended her all-around title from Tokyo four years earlier, adding three further golds and two silvers. She won the hearts of the Mexican public when executing her floor exercise to the tune of 'the Mexican Hat Dance'. Sharing floor exercise gold with Soviet Larisa Petrik she made a silent political protest, bowing her head during the Soviet anthem. That led to two decades of difficulties back home, before her political rehabilitation -- she served as president of the Czech national Olympic Committee and became a member of the IOC. Up to this summer's Paris Games she holds the record of seven individual golds by a female gymnast and at 26 years and 171 days remains the oldest winner of the all-around.

Nadia Comaneci - Montreal 1976

As jaw-dropping moments go they don't come much bigger than the one a 14-year-old Romanian dished up on July 18, 1976, when Comaneci made history with the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics for her uneven bars routine in the team competition. The feat captured the imagination of the world -- and caught out the scoreboard designers who evidently thought her score unattainable meaning when the judges' historic decision was delivered only 1.00 was lit up on the screens rather than 10.0. Comaneci earned 10.0 seven times in a seven-medal haul, including all-around gold. She later defected to the USA, exchanging gold rings of a marital nature with 1984 Olympic champion Bart Connor and set up the Nadia Comaneci Children's Clinic in Bucharest.

Vitaly Scherbo - Barcelona 1992

A 20-year-old Belarus member of the Unified Team representing the former Soviet Union left the Catalan host city for the 1992 games with six gold medals in his suitcase -- four claimed on a single day. Not a bad haul for the son of Soviet acrobats -- it remains a record for a gymnast -- and double the number of titles the man from Minsk had promised his mother before setting out to wow Barcelona. He led the Unified Team to the team title, won the all-around title, then on August 2, he ran riot, topping the podium after the parallel bars, the vault, the rings and tied for first on the pommel horse. Despite his wife suffering a near-fatal car crash ("Why did I need gymnastics? Without my wife, I can't even live" he told The New York Times) he did return to the Olympic stage in 1996 to add a further four bronze medals to his glittering tally.

Simone Biles - Tokyo 2020

The American superstar pitched up at the Covid-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021 expecting to make headlines. She certainly did that, but not in the way she nor the world were anticipating. Shock and surprise and confusion greeted the sight of Biles walking off the Ariake Centre arena after the first rotation of the team final. In the days that followed the world was introduced to the concept of 'the twisties', a disorienting feeling while in mid-air that leaves gymnasts at greater injury risk when landing. While she may not have added to her haul of four golds at Rio she earned admiration for her candid eloquence in talking about mental health issues, as well as a bronze on beam when she returned on the final day. After a two-year time out Biles made a triumphant comeback at the US Classics last year, following up with four world titles to take her tally to 23. Married since Tokyo to Green Bay Packers player Jonathan Owens, Biles, 27, will once again carry the tag of Olympics poster girl -- a golden fortnight in the City of Light awaits.

S.Caetano--PC