William Thoresson

William Thoresson took up gymnastics at the age of 10 and entered his first Swedish national gymnastics championship in 1951, where he was seventh in the floor exercise. The following year, he represented Sweden in the tournament at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, where his country placed 17th in the team all-around, but Thoresson surprised the audience by winning the gold medal in the floor exercise. He returned to Melbourne four years later to defend his title, even though Sweden did not send a full gymnastics team, but lost to Valentin Muratov of the Soviet Union. He also had to share his silver medal with another Soviet, Viktor Chukarin, as well as Nobuyuki Aihara of Japan.

In-between, Thoresson took bronze in the floor exercise at the 1954 World Championships, with Muratov and Japan’s Masao Takemoto sharing gold. He was European champion in 1957 and came runner-up to Ernst Fivian of Switzerland in 1959. He also took three medals in the vault at that tournament: gold in 1959 (shared with Yury Titov of the Soviet Union) and bronze in 1957 and 1961 (shared in the latter edition with Fivian and Yugoslavia’s Miroslav Cerar).

Thoresson competed in two more editions of the Games, 1960 and 1964, but never again approached the podium. Domestically, he was Swedish champion five times between 1953 and 1957. Following his retirement from active competition, he worked as a teacher and a coach in Venezuela for six years, before returning to Sweden to work in an elementary school. He was inducted into the Gothenburg Sports Hall of Fame in 1999 and the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2001.