Floor Exercise, Women

The gold medal was shared by Soviet Larysa Latynina and Hungarian Ágnes Keleti, who won three apparatus gold medals in Melbourne, missing out only on the vault. Keleti had also competed at the 1952 Olympics, but her Olympic career ended when she defected to Australia after the Melbourne Games, eventually settling in Israel. Latynina would repeat as gold medalist on the floor in both 1960 and 1964. The bronze in 1956 went to Romanian Elena Leuştean-Popescu. Romania would later become a power in women’s gymnastics, but Leuştean-Popescu bronze medal was the first individual gymnastics medal won by Romania.