Polina Astakhova

Polina Astakhova, who lived from 30 October 1936 to 5 August 2005, was a Soviet and Ukrainian artistic gymnast who won ten medals at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Summer Olympics. She became interested in gymnastics at thirteen after watching the championships in Donetsk, where her family had moved, trained at the Shakhtyor club under Vladimir Smirnov, and earned the nickname The Russian Birch in the West for her grace and was called Madonna by Italian journalists in 1960. At the 1956 Games she was the youngest member of the winning Soviet team. In Rome in 1960 she led the all-around until a fall on the beam, and she won gold in the team event and on the bars. In 1964 she won the bars again, becoming the first gymnast to defend an Olympic uneven bars title. She worked as a national coach in Ukraine from 1972, was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2002 and died in Kyiv aged 68.