GAJDOŠ A.: SHORT HISTORICAL NOTES XXVII                                                                            Vol. 15 Issue 2: 285-287 
Science of Gymnastics Journal                           285                                 Science of Gymnastics Journal 
SHORT HISTORICAL NOTES XXVII 
 Anton Gajdoš, Bratislava, Slovakia  
 
 
Ph.D. Anton Gajdoš born on 1.6.1940 in Dubriniči (today Ukraine) 
lives most of his life in Bratislava (ex TCH, nowadays SVK). He 
comes from gymnastics family (his brother Pavel have world 
championship medals) and he devoted his life to gymnastics. His last 
achievement is establishment of Narodna encyklopedia športu 
Slovenska (www.sportency.sk). Among his passion is collecting 
photos and signatures of gymnasts. As we tend to forget old 
champions and important gymnasts, judges and coaches, we decided 
to publish part of his archive under title Short historical notes. All 
information on these pages is from Anton’s archives and collected 
through years.  
 
 
 
Mitsuo Tsukahara (December, 22, 1947, Tokio, Japan) 
 
 
 
Mitsuo Tsukahara started with gymnastics at age of 
13, what is from today perspective very, very late. 
His body constitution and extreme high quality of 
motor control with great motor abilities allowed him 
fast development of technical knowledge.  
 
After only eight years of practicing gymnastics he 
made Olympic debut at Olympic Games in New 
Mexico with earning team gold medal, while he 
finished 18
th
 in all around and 4zh on floor.  
 
On left is his photo while performing Yamashita 
vault. By his words this vault was his weak point and 
he could not achieve high results. After he thought 
he could perform something original and overpass 
weakness of Yamashita and from December 1969 he 
trained new vault. He started to perform on side 
horse handstand and roll backward on decline mats, 
later added salto and as a whole vault wanted to 
perform handstand with ½ turn with salto backward. 
As it was quite difficult to do it, new creativity was 
to use cartwheel with ¼ turn inward and everything 
was much easier.   
 
During World Championship in Ljubljana he 
showed both of his vaults tucked ad piked version (in 
finals). 

 
GAJDOŠ A.: SHORT HISTORICAL NOTES XXVII                                                                            Vol. 15 Issue 2: 285-287 
Science of Gymnastics Journal                           286                                 Science of Gymnastics Journal 
 
Kinogram of Tsukahara performing Tsukahara tucked at WC 1970 in Ljubljana (from book 
Čuk, Karacsony: Vault, 2004) 
 
 
 
Kinogram of Tsukahara performing Tsukahara piked at WC 1970 in Ljubljana (from book Čuk, 
Karacsony: Vault, 2004) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
At Olympic Games in München he surprised everyone again with new element. From high bar 
he performed double salto backward tucked with 1/1 turn. (Kinogram from FIG’s Code of 
Points) 
 
After his gymnastics career he held many different positions in gymnastics, his son (with 
Chieko Oda, also Olympic gymnast) Naoya was also gymnast who gained gold medal at OG 
2004 as team member. 
 
Besides many honors, he was also decorated with Japan Medal of Honor with purple ribbon. 
For the gymnastics, he is one of the greatest inventors, his name lives every day in all gymnastic 
halls.  

 
GAJDOŠ A.: SHORT HISTORICAL NOTES XXVII                                                                            Vol. 15 Issue 2: 285-287 
Science of Gymnastics Journal                           287                                 Science of Gymnastics Journal 
 
Mitsuo Tsukahara greatest results: 
 
1968  OG New Mexico (Mexico) 1. Team 
1970 WC Ljubljana (Slovenia)  1. Team, 1. Vault, 2. All Around, 2. Rings 
1972 OG München (Germany)  1. Team, 1. Horizontal bar, 3. Rings 
1974 WC  Varna (Bulgaria)  1. Team 
1976 OG Montreal (Canada)  1. Team, 1. Horizontal bar, 2. Vault  
3. All Around, 3. Parallel bars 
1978 WC Strasbourg (France)  1. Team