29. January 2026  
Rome, ITA  
Artistic Gymnastics

Italian gymnastics legend Franco Menichelli has passed away

Italy's 1964 Olympic gymnastics champion Franco MENICHELLI, whose unique and elegant style heralded a new era in floor gymnastics, passed away on 28 January at the age of 84! Born on 3 August 1941 in Rome, he later decided not to follow in the footsteps of his older brother Giampaolo and take up football: even as a boy, he developed a special love for running on his hands and therefore turned his attention to apparatus gymnastics with enthusiasm.

Menichelli, who was blessed with tremendous jumping power, became famous for his impressive somersaults at incredible heights. As a 19-year-old local hero, he won bronze medals in both the team and floor events at his first Olympic Games in Rome in 1960.
Prior to that, he had been trained by Swiss gymnastics legend Jack Günthard since 1958.

He successfully defended his 1961 European Championship title in Luxembourg in 1963 in Belgrade and 1965 in Antwerp. In between, he also won bronze at the 1962 World Championships in Prague on his speciality apparatus.
Menichelli's dream of Olympic gold came true in Tokyo in 1964, where he beat Viktor Lissitzki (URS) and Japan's star Yukio Endo to take silver on the floor. He also won silver on the rings and bronze on the parallel bars, giving him a total of five Olympic medals. 

Menichelli was one of the first men to popularise competing in shorts instead of the traditional long white ‘shepherd's’ trousers, a trend that continues to this day:

After suffering an Achilles tendon injury at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, he ended his impressive career and later coached the Italian men's national team from 1973 to 1979.
Together with Karin Janz (GDR/GER), Dmitri Bilozerchev (URS/RUS) and Kurt Thomas (USA), Franco Menichelli was inducted into the "International Gymnastics Hall of Fame" in Oklahoma City in 2003.
The artistic gymnastics world honours the former floor virtuoso, who was also a magnificent all-rounder as a four-time Italian national all-around champion, with the conventional term ‘Menichelli’ for a straddle back handspring on the floor or balance beam.
* gymmedia / Eckhard W. Herholz
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