The IOC announced today that Tokyo would host the Olympic Games in the summer or 2020. Tokyo hosted the games back in 1964, making Tokyo a second time Olympian city.
With that it's time to put your hair up in that beehive and shellack it with so much aerosol hairspray that it does not move. Get out your record players and your 8-tracks and your Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan (pre-electric) and Janis Joplin records, we're going back to 1964...
In Tokyo, 1964...
The Japanese Men's team were the top freaking dogs. They were the dominant force in men's gymnastics. They won the team final ahead of the Soviet Union and eight individual medals four of them gold. The Japanese men made their mark in gymnastics in more than one way. Not only did the dominate, their names are splashed all over today's code of points in men's and women's gymnastics.
The Soviet Union dominated the women's field and Larisa Latynina was the Queen of the Soviet team. She won 14 Olympic individual medals from 1956 to 1964. Going into the 1964 Games, Latynina was the reigning world champion, having beaten Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia in 1962.
Vera Caslavska won the all-around title for the women, representing the now nonexistent Czechoslovakia. Yes, that was a country and so was East Germany. She also won the vault title and the balance beam title.
The guys wore suspenders. They occasionally wore the shortest short shorts ever, and they wore socks that look like they came from the costume department for Revenge of the Nerds.
There were hair-do's that probably destroyed the Ozone layer with all that aerosol hairspray they required. They were shellacked and re-shellacked until they formed a helmet beehive. Seriously, they did not move...at all.
With that it's time to put your hair up in that beehive and shellack it with so much aerosol hairspray that it does not move. Get out your record players and your 8-tracks and your Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan (pre-electric) and Janis Joplin records, we're going back to 1964...
In Tokyo, 1964...
The Japanese Men's team were the top freaking dogs. They were the dominant force in men's gymnastics. They won the team final ahead of the Soviet Union and eight individual medals four of them gold. The Japanese men made their mark in gymnastics in more than one way. Not only did the dominate, their names are splashed all over today's code of points in men's and women's gymnastics.
The Soviet Union dominated the women's field and Larisa Latynina was the Queen of the Soviet team. She won 14 Olympic individual medals from 1956 to 1964. Going into the 1964 Games, Latynina was the reigning world champion, having beaten Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia in 1962.
Vera Caslavska won the all-around title for the women, representing the now nonexistent Czechoslovakia. Yes, that was a country and so was East Germany. She also won the vault title and the balance beam title.
The events themselves were far different. For one thing, an Olympic winning vault would be the equivalent of maybe a level five compulsory vault today. Of course, they were using the now outdated horse as opposed to the vaulting table that's been used since 2001. The uneven bars were really just men's parallel bars that they raised one bar up a little higher than the other. The floor exercise was really just a bluish blanket on the cement floor, it did not have the spring that it does today. Gymnasts were not performing the same super difficult tumbling that they are competing today, same goes for the balance beam. And men's high bar, made you dizzy.
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