Biking For Balance

Archive for January, 2011

The Summer Olympics, 1960 was the multi-sport event that took place at Rome in Italy. Rome was earlier awarded the Summer Olympics, 1908 but due to the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 1906 they had to decline the organization of this event and the honor was passed to London.

There were many exceptional performances at the Rome Olympics, 1960. Soviet gymnasts were fabulous in these Games by winning 15 medals out of the possible 16 in the women’s gymnastics. Denmark’s Paul Elvstrøm captured the limelight in sailing by winning fourth consecutive gold medal in the Olympics in Finn class. There are only three others to match this feat in the individual event category – Carl Lewis, Al Oerter and Ray Ewry.

Hungary’s Aladár Gerevich maintained his dominance in fencing by winning sixth gold medal in a row in team saber competition. He won this event from 1932 to 1936 and from 1948 to 1960. Wilma Rudolph, who was a former patient of polio, won the title in three sprint events. Ethiopia’s Abebe Bikila won the gold in the marathon event bare-footed.

Cassius Clay, who was later called Muhammad Ali, performed spectacularly and won the gold in the light-heavyweight category of boxing. The men’s gymnastics side of Japan won the gold. This was their first out of the five successive gold medals. The last out of these was won at Montreal in 1976.

The US men’s basketball team won fifth straight gold medal in Olympics. This team consisted of brilliant players like Walt Bellamy, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West and Jerry Lucas. Australia’s Herb Elliott displayed his dominance and won the 1500 meters title. Armin Hary ran 100 meters in a timing of 10.2 sec and won the gold.