Background
Kato was born in Niigata Prefecture and studied at the Tokyo Kyoiku University.
加藤 沢男
Kato was born in Niigata Prefecture and studied at the Tokyo Kyoiku University.
He placed third in the rings event. Four years later the Japanese men"s gymnastics team dominated the 1972 Olympics, taking 15 out of 21 individual medals. He aimed for an unprecedented third gold medal in the all-around at the 1976 Summer Olympics, but was defeated by Nikolai Andrianov.
The team competition was close this time, but the Japanese defeated the Soviets by four tenths of a point, earning their fifth consecutive title.
Kato closed out his Olympic career by retaining his title in the parallel bars. He is one of the most successful male gymnasts ever at the Olympics: his eight gold and twelve overall medals are best rivaled by Nikolai Andrianov"s seven gold and fifteen overall, Boris Shakhlin"s seven gold and thirteen overall, and Takashi Ono"s five gold and thirteen overall.
In 2001 Kato was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Kato became involved in a controversy in the men"s team competition.
Being the head judge he lowered by 0.2 points the maximum score for a release move on the horizontal bar, which was part of the program of three American gymnasts: Brett McClure, Jason Gatson and Blaine Wilson.
Consequently, Gatson and Wilson replaced the release move with a more difficult one, which resulted in a fall by Wilson and a loss of United States. Team to Japan. As of 2010 Kato was a professor emeritus at the University of Tsukuba.