Gymnast breaks leg

Press, 23 July 1976, Page 24

Gymnast breaks leg

NZPA Montreal A Japanese gymnast broke his leg in helping defeat Russia in the men’s team event at the Olympic Games yesterday. Nhun Fugimoto scored a personal-best 9.75 points on the rings, then fractured his tibia as he performed a triple somersault and twist to finish the exercise.

Fugimoto, his face contorted with pain, stood still long enough to get the high mark which enabled Japan to total 576.85 points to Russia’s 576.45.

Then he collapsed and was carried from the arena. Later yesterday, after X-rays, his leg was in a cast from hip to toe.

It was a night of drama in the men’s team event, with with the crowd frequently roaring its disapproval of what it considered to be biased judging in favour of the Russians.

‘‘The judging was quite ncredible,” the Australian gymnastics manager (Mr Barry Cheales) said. However, there were Japanese judges on each of the last two pieces of apparatus, and they “argued the toss” with the Russian refereejudge. The Japanese overtook their rivals with the last exercise to take the gold medal.

Mr Cheales also said he believed the judges categorised competing countries into sections in advance.

There were the lesser nations (including Australia) which invariably would get scores of 8.0 to 9.0, the middle countries with 9.0 to 9.5 and those at the top with 9.5 to 10.0. “It was obvious that had our two male gymnasts competed in the last section, they would have scored 9.4 or 9.5 with no worries,” Mr Cheales said.

Nikolai Andrianov, Russia’s European champion, dethroned Japan’s Sawao Kato, the 1968 and 1972 Olympic, gold medallist, to win the men’s combined exercises gymnastics title in superb style later. The 24-year-old blond Russian was solidly consistent over the six apparatuses, moving with grace on the floor and rugged firmness on the rings. Kato was second —one point behind Andrianov with 115.650, and another Japanese, Mitsuo Tsukahara, got the bronze medal with a total of 115.575. After the enthralling exhibitions of the women’s combined exercises earlier in the evening, the men’s competition was an anticlimax. The 18,000 crowd seemed emotionally exhausted by the women’s performances and

some of Andrianov's most deft moves got only scanty applause. The atmosphere was further spoiled by the absence through injury of the world champion. Shigeru Kasamatsu, and his Japanese team-mate, Eizo Kenmotsu, who broke his leg in warming up for the team event but struggled on to compete before the pain finally forced him to withdraw.