Inverted Cross: A gymnastics skill performed on the still rings. It is an inverted handstand position, with the arms stretched straight out from the shoulders perpendicular to the body. Essentially it is an upside-down iron cross.
Inverted Cross: A gymnastics skill performed on the still rings. It is an inverted handstand position, with the arms stretched straight out from the shoulders perpendicular to the body. Essentially it is an upside-down iron cross.
Could you please tell me who was the first Olympian to perform the Inverted Iron Cross – I believe he actually called it the St. Peter’s Cross in the performance and I believe it occured in the late 80’s or early 90’s.
Thanks,
Sincerely,
David T. Hill
You are really off by more than at least 50 years. Leon Å tukelj, an Olympian, is who some claim was the originator of the inverted cross.
But the first Olympian to perform this skill, or more specifically, the first to perform it in the Olympics, may have been Alois Hudec (1908-1997), from Czechoslovakia, who won the gold medal on rings in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
As some proof of how long this skill has been done, this is a 1938 video of Leon Å tukelj(?) doing the inverted cross: