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This is Czech gymnast Véra Cáslavská. In 1968, she faced off against the Soviets when she signed a manifesto calling for democratic change in Czechoslovakia. When the Soviet Union invaded the country, Cáslavská was forced to flee to the countryside, losing her training facility and dashing her hopes of competing in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
However, she did not give up. She continued her training in the forests of Moravia, where she trained by using logs as balance beams, swinging from tree branches, and lifting potato sacks to increase her upper body strength. At the last minute, she was given the green light to compete in the Olympics.
“While the Soviet gymnasts were already in Mexico City, adjusting to the altitude and the climate, I was hanging from trees, practicing my floor exercise in the meadow in front of the cottage and building calluses on my hands by shoveling coal. Then I went to Mexico and won the gold medal,” she told the Los Angeles Times in a 1990 interview.
In her lifetime, she won 22 international titles between 1959 and 1968. This included 11 European championships, 4 world titles, and 7 Olympic gold medals.
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