The Men's Team Competitions of the 18th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Varna (BUL) were in full swing. Japanese and Soviet formations were neck and neck. Nicolai Andrianov and his team-mates were doing everything in their power to make life hard for Kenmotsu, Kasamtsu and the other sensei in the Japanese hierarchy.

24 year old Sawao Kato was up next at the high bar. By this time, Kato was the proud owner of a nice selection of Olympic Gold medals from the all-around and floor exercises in Mexico (1968), and the bars at the Munich Olympic Games (1972).

He engaged, and in a giant swing lost control and plummeted to the floor. Atrocious pain stabbed through his left shoulder. It took him less than a second to realise what had happened; a dislocated shoulder, and a doctor swiftly closing in.

The medic would never reach the gymnast. Sawao jumped to his feet, swung his arm in violent circles and grasped the bar a second time in a final attempt to finish his exercise. "I didn't want my fall to affect the team!" he would later confess. But the pain was too excruciating. Kato fell a second time and gave up. In the final, Japan (571.400 pts) finished first despite Kato’s fall, the Soviet Union (567.350 pts) following in its wake. The accident would have no impact on the team’s result. Yet it would leave its painful mark for years to come and exclude him from the apparatus for months.

But this gymnast had the strength of a samurai, a strength he wielded to fight his way back to the top. He would become the 1976 Olympic champion at the bars in Montreal, taking a Silver in the all-around for good measure. His career in sports would draw to a close in 1977 in Oviedo (ESP), where he would take his place on the podium for the last time at the World Cup. He was 32 years old.

Rarely has a gymnast shown such consistent, selfless devotion to his team. Sawao Kato is known for this one supreme quality, among a hundred others, qualities which allowed him to live out a sensational career.