大象传媒

A question for you - who is the only man to win five individual gold medals at one Summer Olympics and four in one day?

The answer can wait a couple of paragraphs.

At the 1992 Games in Barcelona a new team topped the medal table with 45 golds.

Called the it came into existence following the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 and consisted of 12 of the 15 former Soviet republics.

The dozen, in alphabetical order, were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

The missing three were Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania who competed separately.

How are you doing with the gold medallist?

No prizes for guessing he competed for the Unified Team in the gymnastics.

is the name you are looking for and he surprised many people, including his own coaches, when he won six of the eight gold medals on offer in Spain as he was renowned for being inconsistent.

His individual successes came in the all-around, vault, rings, parallel bars and pommel horse (tied first), and his final gold came in the team competition.

As Scherbo was from the when he won his individual titles, but the and flag were used for the team gold.

In 1995, while preparing for the Atlanta Games, his wife, Irina, was involved in a near-fatal car crash and lapsed into a coma.

Scherbo stopped training to be at her bedside and put on over one stone in weight.

One month later, Irina came round and ordered Vitaly to resume training and although he couldn't repeat his form of four years earlier, he emerged with

Scherbo also won 23 world championship medals, 11 of which were gold, between 1991-96.

Other gymnasts have won more gold medals, but none achieved the unique feat of Scherbo in Barcelona - will his record ever be matched?