Vlasta Děkanová

Vlasta Děkanová (5 September 1909 – 16 October 1974) was a Czechoslovak artistic gymnast. She was the first World all-around champion in women's artistic gymnastics.

Early life
Děkanová was born in Prague in 1909. Her father was a dedicated member of Sokol and the manager of a gym in the Žižkov district of Prague.

She progressed through the Sokol system, graduating in 1933. She performed locally at the Lucerna Palace. Beginning in 1928, Děkanová started touring and performing in exhibitions internationally in countries including Belgium, France, Netherlands, Poland, and Yugoslavia. In the United States, she performed in exhibitions in Cleveland, New York, and Washington.

Competitive career


Děkanová made her World Championship competitive debut at the very first 1934 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships for women held June 11 and 12 that year in Budapest, Hungary. Reportedly, cheating in the scoring was uncovered and corrected, allowing the Czechoslovakian team, of which she was a part, to win the team title. There was no individual competition. But when all of the individual totals were added up, Děkanová had the highest overall total.

Two years later, Děkanová competed at the next installment of the 1938 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships where she again was the highest individual finisher among all competitors, successfully defending her placement at the previous World Championships.

According to an official document published by the FIG, Dekanova "won the general competition at the 1934 and 1938 World Championships."

After her successful defense of her 1934 first-place position in 1938, her international competitive reputation was all the more secure. The rationale for her success was articulated in the official proceedings of the 10th Sokol Slet:

"'Sister Vlasta Děkanová thus became the first world champion in women’s gymnastics...She deserved to be the best due to her versatility and competitive reliability, gained by diligent and persistent preparation for all significant Sokol and international races in the last ten years."

Another supporting piece of information suggesting Děkanová's consistent excellence is that at a Czechoslovakian selection competition held on 15 May 1938, just weeks before the 1938 Worlds held on June 30 and July 1, Děkanová placed 1st among all 19 individuals.

1936 Berlin Summer Olympics
Heading into the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics as reigning World All-Around Champion (and eventual successful defender of her world all-around title at the next World Championships in 1938), Dekanova was a favorite to do extremely well and contribute heavily towards her team’s overall score and placement in the team standings. However, her excellent and consistent placement at the standing world championships and other competitions met with a considerable reversal of fortune at these games. Although there was no individual all-around competition for the women, individual standings were, nevertheless, tabulated in the official Olympic report. While placing near the top in the competitive field of 64 total individual contestants on both the uneven bars (8th place) and vault (5th place) apparatuses with scores that were consistently relatively very good on both the compulsory and voluntary exercises, the only one of her six apparatus performances (including both compulsory and voluntary exercises on each apparatus) in the entire competition that was in the top 3 and reflective of her international champion status was her compulsory exercise on vault which was given the 3rd-highest mark for that exercise in the competition. On balance beam, in particular, her reversal of fortune was most revealing as she placed 22nd with both her compulsory and voluntary exercises being given marks that were each well outside of the top 10. In summary, at the Olympics, Dekanova lost her 1st-place finish, which she successfully defended at the next World Championships, by dropping from 1st to 6th place, and her Czechoslovakian team was unsuccessful in defending their World Team Champions reputation, taking 2nd place to the home German team.

The reversal of fortune of Dekanova’s previous and further consistent champion status at these games headlines the much more extreme reversal of fortune experienced by both of the other then-current women’s world all-around medalists – Hungary’s Margit Kalocsai and Poland’s Janina Skirlińska who were, respectively, the 2nd and 3rd place finishers (out of a competitive field of 40 contestants) at the 1934 World Championships. Kalocsai‘s and Skirlińska’s extreme reversals of fortune paralleled, with immediately adjacent juxtapositioning, each other’s, with score placements that nearly universally were far from being aligned with their other international competitive standings – whereas Kalocsai finished immediately above Skirlinska at the 1934 World Championships (2nd, to Skirlinska’s 3rd), she finished immediately below Skirlińska (41st, to Skirlińska’s 40th) at these 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics. With the exception of Kalocsai’s marks on balance beam, where her combined compulsory and voluntary scores gave her an overall score of 5th on that apparatus, all of both Kalocsai’s and Skirlinska’s marks in both the compulsory and voluntary exercises on each apparatus (Kalocsai was 61st on parallel bars, 33rd on vault, and, again, 5th on balance beam, whereas Skirlinska was 48th on parallel bars, 36th on vault, and 15th on balance beam)  were far from being at the top of the competitive field. (Two years later, whereas Kalocsai lacked the opportunity to re-assert her high ranking at the world championships due to Hungary not sending a team, Skirlinska re-asserted her competitive excellence at the next world championships in 1938 where, in the all-around individual standings, she was the 4th-place finisher (out of a field of 32 competitors), the highest-finishing non-Czechoslovakian female competitor at those championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.)



Additionally, the reversal of fortune of many of the top gymnasts in the world at these games was not limited to the reversals of fortune of Dekanova and her fellow 1934 world all-around medalists Kalocsai and Skirlinska. Their reversals of fortune were mirrored on the men’s side in the individual all-around competition, as well, again quite extremely in numerous instances, by several individuals who either already were or would become World or Olympic all-around champions or medalists that decade:


 * 1924 Olympic All-Around Champion from Yugoslavia, Leon Štukelj (also 8th at the 1926 Worlds, 13th at the 1926 Worlds, Bronze (3rd) All-Around Medalist at the 1928 Olympics, and 10th at the 1931 Worlds ) finished in 32nd place here.
 * 1928 Olympic All-Around Champion from Switzerland, Georges Miez (24th at the 1924 Olympics, 8th at the 1931 Worlds, Floor Exercise Silver-Medalist at the 1932 Los Angeles Summer Olympics,  and 7th at the 1934 Worlds) finished in 14th place here.
 * 1930 World All-Around Champion from Yugoslavia, Josip Primožič (also 11th at the 1926 Worlds, 5th at the 1928 Amsterdam Summer Olympics, 9th at the 1931 Worlds, and 19th at the 1938 Worlds), finished in 31st place here.
 * 1938 World All-Around Champion from Czechoslovakia, Jan Gajdoš (also 2nd at the 1930 Worlds, 3rd at the 1931 Worlds, and 6th at the 1934 Worlds, ) finished in 27th place here.
 * 1932 Olympic All-Around Silver Medalist from Hungary, István Pelle (also 9th at the 1930 Worlds, and 7th at the 1931 Worlds ) finished in 18th place here.
 * 1932 Olympic All-Around Bronze Medalist from Finland, Heikki Savolainen (also 1st-place finisher at the 1931 Worlds, and 4th at the 1934 Worlds ) finished in 9th place here.
 * 1934 World All-Around Bronze Medalist from Czechoslovakia, Emanuel Löffler (also 10th at the 1928 Olympics and 9th at the 1938 Worlds ) finished in 40th place here,  which, coincidentally, was exactly the same dramatic reversal of fortune that Poland’s Janina Skirlińska experienced at these games as, like Loffler, she was also both 3rd at the 1934 Worlds and 40th at the 1936 Olympics (as referenced previously).
 * Lastly and, by far, most dramatically, reigning 1932 Olympic All-Around Champion from Italy, Romeo Neri (also 4th at the 1928 Olympics, 5th at the 1931 Worlds, and 2nd at the 1934 Worlds ), not even close to finishing the competition, and with scores that were consistently near the bottom of all of the competitors in the field, finished in dead last place – 111th.

In summary, Dekanova was far from alone in being the only world or Olympic all-around champion or medalist who experienced a stark reversal in fortune, many of them being quite extreme, in their competitive endeavors. She was joined in this experience by no fewer than 10 other gymnasts from no fewer than 7 different countries, including 3 different Olympic all-around champions and 2 different World All-Around Champions: Dekanova’s fellow Czechoslovakians Jan Gajdoš and Emanuel Löffler, Finland’s Heikki Savolainen, Hungary’s Margit Kalocsai and István Pelle, Italy’s Romeo Neri, Poland’s Janina Skirlińska, Switzerland’s Georges Miez, and Yugoslavia’s Josip Primožič and Leon Štukelj.

World War II Activities and Post-Competitive Career
Like many other Sokol members (gymnasts or otherwise) such as 1922 World All-Around Champion František Pecháček, 1928 Olympic Parallel Bars Champion Ladislav Vácha, and 1938 World All-Around Champion Jan Gajdoš, all also Czechoslovakian, and all of whom lost their lives as resistance fighters during World War II, Děkanová was also involved in the underground Czechoslovakian resistance in World War II. She was a magistrate and was involved in copying and distributing material from illegal publications, such as "V boj" ("Into combat") by prominent journalist Irena Bernášková. She was punished for such activities, once spending several weeks in jail. She also served as a volunteer nurse during the Prague uprising of May 1945 and helped remove wounded soldiers from the front line of combat.

After World War II, she remained active in the sport and trained young gymnasts. She was also involved in developing and maintaining city infrastructure as a planner and dispatcher of road and water management buildings.



Post-WWII Competitive Record and Reputation
Despite being in her mid-to-late 30s and having earned considerable laurels, Dekanova returned to competitive gymnastics in some capacity after World War II. She appears to have been an object of contention in power struggles among various officials. In a letter, dated August 1, 1948, to the Czechoslovakian National Women's Board of Instructors and the Women's Technical Committee, Marie Provazníková, leader of Sokol women and the head of the International Gymnastics Federation's own Women's Technical Committee, stated that functionaries unknown to her named Děkanová to the Czechoslovakian Women's Gymnastics Olympics Team for the 1948 London Summer Olympics. About this nebulous administrative maneuver, however, Provaznikova stated in that letter

"'Deliberately, much less with approval of the Women's Technical Committee COS, sister Vlasta Děkanová was named a substitute on the competing team. She is not prepared for the contest and lacks other qualifications, which in all probability will be impossible to remedy and the team will start minus an alternate.'"

Additionally, in her autobiography, Provaznikova wrote further on this particular subject.

"'They [the 'communists'] simply demanded I put Vlasta Děkanová on the list of members of the Olympic team. I refused, stating that inclusion in this group was earned through a series of tests and no one had the right to change this. I also added that to use Děkanová as an alternate would imperil the final outcome, since both substitutes would be involved in the optional team exercise with indian clubs, which was her weak point.  She was a former top competitor, brought up in the old school and lacked the supple, fluent movement needed for that particular drill.  While I was chairman of the Women's Technical Committee FIG the communists could not afford a public break with me as it would cause worldwide attention.  Nonetheless, since Nora Buddeusová was an excellent international judge and we needed her in that capacity, we moved Vlasta Děkanová up from assistant to head coach.  We paid dearly for that compromise at the games.'"

Provaznikova’s assertions about Děkanová, however, contrast with at least one piece of evidence suggesting Děkanová’s continued prime competitive abilities post-WWII when she was 37 years old. In a domestic competition, on 6 October 1946, featuring dozens of contestants, Děkanová placed 2nd with 66.7 points, which was 95.28% of the maximum score of 70, just behind her perennial World Championship and Olympic teammate Zdeňka Veřmiřovská who scored 67.2 points, or 96% of the maximum possible score, and 5 or more percentage points ahead of all of the rest of her competitors. In this 2nd place position, Děkanová placed far ahead of 3 individuals who apparently made the Olympic team less than 2 years later: Miloslava Misáková who was tied for 12th place with 56.2 points, Olga Šilhánová who was tied for 18th place with 54.7 points, and Věra Růžičková who was in 30th place with 44.2 points.

Legacy
Before the introduction of the women's full program at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, medals were awarded to women's teams only, without distinguishing individual athletes. Therefore, Děkanová was the most decorated female artistic gymnast at the World and Olympic level, overall, in the era before World War II, taking into account what information is publicly available.

Additionally, as Děkanová led her team to its first two World Championship victories and coached her team to Olympic victory in 1948, she can be credited as playing a very crucial role in establishing the legacy of her country in the sport of women's gymnastics. At the 15 World and Olympic competitions held, from 1934 to 1970, they won team medals at all but 2 of those competitions, and one of their only two non-medal-wins was due to not attending, therefore, they won team medals at 13 out of their 14 showings at those various championships throughout that era.