Beautiful winner's medal issued for a gymnastics event at the Rome 1960 Summer Olympics. Silver, 68 mm, 102 gm, by Giuseppe Cassioli; manufactured by Artistice Fiorentini. The front depicts a victorious athlete being carried by several jubilant athletes; the reverse, inscribed, "Giochi Della XVII Olimpiade Roma MCMLX," features a 'Seated Victory' with the Colosseum in the background. The medal is set in its original cast bronze bezel, engraved at the bottom with the name of the sport in Italian, "Ginnastica." Includes 20 olive leaf links from the original bronze winner’s chain.
The Games of the XVII Olympiad featured 14 different artistic gymnastics events, eight for men and six for women, with a total of 22 silver medals dispersed among second place finishers. Held in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome between September 5 and 10, the competitions were dominated by the Soviet Union, which attained 26 of the possible 43 medals, with the women nearly running the table in every individual event—Eva Bosáková of Czechoslovakia denied such a feat by taking gold in the balance beam. The winner's medals issued for the 1960 Rome Olympics were the first designed to be worn around the neck and the first for any Summer Games to feature the name of the specific sport. An exquisite second place medal. From The Mason Dinehart Collection.
