Name — Alexander Dityatin

Country — USSR

Date of birth — 1957-08-07

Birthplace — Leningrad

Height — 174 cm

Weight — 67.0 kg

Discipline — Gymnastics

Olympic Games (10 medals — 3 gold, 6 silver, 1 bronze)

All-around: 1st (1980), 4th (1976)

Alexander Dityatin was the first ever male gymnast to be awarded a perfect “10” (long horse vault) at the 1980 Moscow Games.

At home in Russia, the man from Leningrad (now St Petersburg) went on to surpass his revered teammate Nikolai Andrianov in the race for domestic sporting recognition.

After years of playing second fiddle to Andrianov, 22-year-old Dityatin won record eight medals in the Moscow Games to add to his historic achievement of the perfect 10 — a feat which had only been recorded by one other gymnast, Romania’s Nadia Comaneci.

Despite his eventual glory in Moscow, the rise of Dityatin was not quite so spectacular as that of his Romanian counterpart.

Physically he was not an astounding prospect when he began to grace the apparatus. Small, with round-shoulders, he was not overly interested in the choreographic aspects of the sport.

Yet he had two qualities that would eventually help him achieve success — he was a hard worker, and also very well co-ordinated.