The Frenchman Joseph Martinez, who was best in the wake of the World Championships in 1903, is considered to be the first World Champion. In 1905 and 1907, it could not be decide whether the rings should be swinging or not – therefore the rings were simply left out. Frenchmen, Czechs and Italians led for a long time, until the small Slovene Leon Stukelj came up and became Olympic Champion and World Champion twice. In Berlin, at the age of 38, he even achieved the silver medal, behind the Czech Hudec, who achieved the Golden one. The “power master” of the 1950ies was the man with the little beard: Albert Asarjan, who started the longstanding Soviet and Japanese dominance at the rings in 1954 and 1958.
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Titov,
Voronin, Nakayama, Andrianow, Ditjatin
and
Gushiken
are the names of the most remarkable giants. The
1990'ies will
always be remembered due to the fivefold World Champion and “Lord of the
rings”
Juri Chechi.
In his footsteps the Hungarian
Szilvester Csollany
was
following, being the favourite for Ghent, but was beten there by
Jordan Jovtchev. The successful revenge came 2002 at his Hungarian home,
and in Anaheim 2003 dominated Tampakos
and Jovtchev
together... but from Melbourne 2005 on dominates Yuri van Gelder as "King of the Rings" and won the very first medal for the Netherlands. 2006 in Aarhus won CHEN, Yibing the third ring's medal for China. |
