| Vlasta Děkanová | |
|---|---|
 Děkanová at the 1936 Olympic Games | |
|
Country represented |
File:800px-Flag of the Czech Republic.png Czechoslovakia |
|
Born |
September 5, 1909 |
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Died |
October 16, 1974 (aged 65) |
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Current status |
Deceased |
Vlasta Děkanová (September 5, 1909 – October 16, 1974) was a Czechoslovak/Czech gymnast two-time World All-Around Gymnastics Champion who also competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Featured Gymnast for September 2016
Career[]
At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, she helped her Czechoslovakian team to the silver, this being her only Olympic medal due to the world wars and the lack of recognition of women for individual medals at the Olympic games until the 1952 Helsinki Olympics.
She also was two-time World All-Around Champion at successive World Gymnastics Championships (1934 and 1938), as well as Balance Beam Champion at the latter (some sources conflict as to what other events she won - vault and/or uneven/parallel bars) where women's individual event medals were first awarded. This makes her the most decorated woman gymnast at the worldwide level before the introduction of the women's full program (where women could compete, for the first time, for individual medals and not just team medals) into the Olympics, which occurred in 1952.
Medal Count[]
| Year | Event | TF | AA | VT | PB | BB | FX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1934 | Budapest World Championships | 1st | 1st | ||||
| 1936 | Berlin Olympic Games | 2nd | |||||
| 1938 | Prague World Championships | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st |