Samurai KING
With 12 medals, including eight gold medals, Sawao Kato established himself as Olympic legend
Now into his seventies, the legendary Sawao Kato is the father Japan’s gymnastics revolution. A former professor at Tsubuka University in Japan and a former vice-president of the technical committee of the International Gymnastic Federation, Kato never really impressed anyone with his sporting skills early in his life.
The son of a railway engineer, Kato was brilliant in his studies. The physical education classes did appeal to him in school, but he never showed any great talent in sport. That was until he first saw a gymnastics hall. And his life changed once and for all.
The gymnastics trainers were hugely impressed by his ability to learn quickly. Under the watchful eyes of famous coach Akitomo Kaneko, Kato’s rise was meteoric as a young gymnast and soon he found himself in the Japanese national team. He was 18 when he made his debut and by the time the 1968 Olympics started in Mexico City, the world got to see his incredible skills.
As a gymnast he was a famous in Japan for bringing innovative techniques and all those qualities came to the fore when he took on the mighty USSR gymnasts for the top honours in Mexico City.
Despite carrying an Achilles tendon injury, Kato was heroic in his epic battle for gold with Russian Mikhail Voronin — a battle that he won to clinch his first ever Olympic gold. That individual allaround gold was the first of his eight Olympic gold medals in his glittering career.
Kato won another gold in the team competition in Mexico and also went on to win his second individual gold medal in the floor event.
At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Japan resumed their great rivalry with the USSR and beat them again for the gold, with Kato playing a brilliant role. Kato again won the individual gold as well as the top prize in parallel bars. Kato’s third Olympic Games came in 1976 at Montreal and it was another successful mission for the great Japanese gymnast as he won two gold medals. He failed though in his attempt to win his third straight individual gold. Russian Nikolai Andrianov beat him for the top prize.
But Kato finished his Olympic career with eight gold medals — no male gymnast has won as many. Kato ended his glorious career as a world-class gymnast at the age of 29. The most decorated male gymnast in the history of Olympics was inducted into the Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2001.