Alexander Dityatin

Aleksandr Dityatin
— Gymnast —
Country represented	Soviet Union
Born	(1957-08-07) August 7, 1957 (age 59) Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Discipline	Men's artistic gymnastics
Retired	Yes
Medal record Olympic Games 1980 Moscow Team 1980 Moscow All-around 1980 Moscow Rings 1976 Montreal Team 1976 Montreal Rings 1980 Moscow Pommel horse 1980 Moscow Vault 1980 Moscow Parallel bars 1980 Moscow Horizontal bar 1980 Moscow Floor Exercise World Championships 1979 Ft. Worth Team competition 1979 Ft. Worth All-around 1979 Ft. Worth Vault 1979 Ft. Worth Still rings 1981 Moscow Team competition 1981 Moscow Parallel bars 1981 Moscow Still rings 1978 Strasbourg Team competition 1978 Strasbourg Still rings 1978 Strasbourg All-around 1978 Strasbourg Floor exercise 1979 Ft. Worth Horizontal bar European Championships 1979 Essen Pommel horse 1979 Essen Still rings 1975 Bern Parallel bars 1979 Essen Parallel bars 1975 Bern All-around 1975 Bern Still rings

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Dityatin (Russian: Александр Николаевич Дитятин, born August 7, 1957 in Leningrad) is a retired Soviet/Russian gymnast, three-time Olympic champion, and Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR. Winning eight medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics, he set the record for achieving the most medals of any type at a single Olympic Games. The American swimmer Michael Phelps has now twice equalled this record, at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. Dityatin also holds the all-time Olympic record for most individual medals at a single Games, at seven. Dityatin competed for the Leningrad Dinamo sports society.

Dityatin was born in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) on August 7, 1957. At the age of 15 he was given special dispensation to take part in the senior USSR championships. Two years later he won the Spartakiades in USSR, an event which was followed by a growth crisis in which he grew 12 cm in one year. At the age of 18, as part of the national team, he came third in the European championships, which were won outright by compatriot Nikolai Andrianov.

Dityatin's first Olympic success was at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where he won two silver medals - on the rings and in the team competition. At the 1980 Summer Olympics, after years of being second to teammate Andrianov, 22-year-old Dityatin won a record eight medals in the Moscow Games where he won the all-around title and seven more medals, including two golds to add to his historic achievement of the perfect 10, a feat which had only been recorded by Romania's Nadia Comaneci and the Soviet Union's Nellie Kim in the Olympic Games by then. Shortly after the 1980 Olympics, Dityatin was seriously injured while training, which ended his career. He was the most successful athlete at the 1980 Summer Olympics. As of August 2008 he is the only athlete who won a medal in each of the eight gymnastics events at one Olympics.

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