Lilia Podkopayeva - 1995 World All Around Champion

Honestly, I thought that with such a vast number of readers being from the US, that Shannon Miller would win my 'Favourite 90s All Around Champion' poll.
Personally, I did vote for Lilia but I thought I would be over ruled! It turns out I was wrong, with Lilia storming the competition with over half the votes. Shannon Miller came in second with 20%, while Kim Zmeskal snatched third with 11%.
So, why is LiliPod so endearing?


First off, she was tremendously talented, taking five European and World medals prior to the 1995 World Championships. Throughout her career, she took 17 World, Olympic and European medals!


She was a true all arounder, with no weak event. Throughout her career, she earned medals on all the apparatus individually at either Worlds or the '96 Olympics.

She invented a number of fabulous skills, including a Double front with a half twist on floor and her very own Podkopayeva vault.

She was modest and gracious, even when she didn't win. Leonid Arkaev named her as the gymnast he would miss working with the most!

She was the full package, powerful and yet beautifully balletic.


She made you smile when she came out onto the floor with her charming routines!


At this competition, she was widely considered an underdog, but remained consistent to beat the favourites Lavinia Milosovici and Svetlana Khorkina.

Who's Your Favourite?

1991 Kim Zmeskal
Shannon Miller - 1993/4

Lilia Podkopayeva 1995

Svetlana Khorkina1997

Maria Olaru 1999

Be sure to vote!

Olga Mostepanova and the 1984 Alternate Olympics.

In 1984, there was a Soviet led boycott of the Olympics in LA. Other notable gymnastic countries that boycotted were Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany.
At the world championships in 1983, the Soviets finished first, East Germany third, Bulgaria 4th Czechoslovakia 6th and Hungary 9th. The Olympics went ahead with half of the top ten countries boycotting!
Instead of the Olympics, the Soviets held games in a number of different locations. The gymnastics branch of the friendship games was held in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia. The women competed in the usual format.
The team results were: 1st-Soviet Union, 2nd East Germany, 3rd Czechoslovakia. If all the countries had competed together at the Olympics and been given the same scores, the results would have been as follows: 1-Soviet Union, 2nd East Germany, 3rd Romania. I'm sure you'll agree that a lot of the talent was obviously missing from the 1984 Olympics. Probably the most talented gymnast missing from the games was Olga Mostepanova, although the 1983 world champion, Natalia Yurchenko was also absent.At Olomouc, Olga has an outstanding competition, finishing first in the all around with a perfect score of 40.00.Undoubtly, Olga would have finished ahead of Mary Lou Retton had she been present. In fact, given the scores from the friendship games, if all countries were present in LA, Mary Lou would have finished third, also behind the Czech gymnast Hana Ricna.

Olga also won gold on vault beam and floor. She finished with a perfect beam score of 20.00 after having scored 10 for every beam performance of the games. Here she is on the beam:


Olga competed at the 1985 world championships and won gold with the soviet team, however shortly afterwards she disappeared from the gymnastics scene.

My Favourite Gymnastic Commercials

Over the years, gymnastics has been used to advertise many products, from tyres to laptops, here's my top five:

5. Pneu Egger
This one makes me giggle.


4. Nickelodeon 1992
I'm not sure who the gymnast is in this advert, but I like it because it's old school:


3. Bonaqua
This advert features Belarussian rhythmic gymnasts Inna Zhukova, Svetlana Rudalova, Liubov Charkashyna and Valeria Kurilskaya as well as some clever computer graphic:



2. Adidas Commercial- Nastia Liukin & Nadia Comaneci 2004
This was shown during the 2004 Olympics, when Nastia was still 'the next big thing' I love how they've been brought togther in a way that seems so real.


1. Audi Commercial 2008
The first time I saw this advert, it was ...wow. Plus, it ran in the UK and we don't get a lot of gym ads over here. It's really clever too, making it my favourite gymnastic advert. It features a group of Hungarian gymnasts, imitating the motions of a car engine:

A Brief History of Vaulting

The first Olympic vault champion was the Soviet gymnast, Ekaterina Kalinchuk. Unfortunatley, I couldn't find any footage of her, or infact, any refrence to her other than she won the medal by 0.1 with a 19.20. She scored a 9.70 in the compulsory vault, and a 9.50 in optionals.

The first vault champion I could find (decent) footage of was Vera Caslavska, a Czech gymnast (who is very well documented, by the way), in 1968:

Two years after the olympics came the debut of one of the most famous vaults, the Yurchenko:

This became a staple vault for gymnasts and still is today, all be it with a bit more twisting. In fact, every olympic gold medalist on the vault since 1988 has used a yurchenko vault. In 1988, Sveltlana Boginskaya was the vault champion using Yurchenkos, a tucked full and a straight full. In 2008, Hong Un Jong became vault champion using a 2.5 twisting Yurchenko.

There has been a lot of fuss recently about the Amanar vault. First performed by Simona Amanar at the 2000 Olympics, the Amanar is a 2.5 twisting yurchenko and notriously difficult. Here's its debut:

The yurchenko made the path for other vaults using the round off entry, the Podkopayeva (A roundoff, half on, front pike with a half twist off), the Khorkina (round off, half on, tucked rudi) and more recently the Cheng (roundoff, half on, straight rudi). Here's the most difficult of these, the Cheng:

Remember The Name

The history books are full of names that we all remember; Nadia Comaneci, Olga Korbut, Svetlana Boginskaya. But what about the other amazing gymnasts that are less well remembered? Let's take a look at a few, see how many you remember..

Elivira Saadi completed for the Soviet Union between the years of 1967 and 1976, earning two Olympic and four world medals. In 1973, she was the top soviet, winning the balance beam, floor exercise and all around title at national championships. She was beautifully graceful, elegant and danced like a woman instead of a pixie. Her more old fashioned gymnastics and taller, less child-like looks, meant that she lacked the wow factor for the judges. Take a look at her floor routine, look for the turns in attitude that we were all so impressed by this Olympics:


Rodica Dunca was a Romanian gymnast. She was a member of the 1979 world team that lead Romania to their first victory over the soviets. In 1980 she earned the all around title at Champions All. She was also a member of the 1980 Olympic team and placed 7th all around. In 1981, she earned a bronze medal on balance beam at Europeans before retiring in 1982. Here's her balance beam, the apparatus she was best known for. She has a traditional Romanian style, with beautiful long legs. Look for the impressive back sumi to scale:


Simona Pauca placed third behind Mary Lou Retton and Ecaterina Szabo at the 1984 Olympic games. Another Romanian, she also earned a gold with the team and on balance beam. After the Olympics, she disappeared from the world stage. Supposedly a fight occurred between her parents and the coaches and she was forced to move back to her home club. She kept training until 1986 when she retired. Here's her beam:


Olga Mostepanova never made it to the Olympics, because of the 1984 Soviet Boycott. However, at the friendship games, she almost completed a clean sweep, winning the team, all around, floor, vault and balance beam. During the competition she was given twelve perfect tens. In her time she also won five world medals. Here's her floor exercise, for some reason she reminds me of Lili Pod:


It strikes me that East Germany created many amazing, yet little remembered gymnasts. One example is Dagmar Kersten, who won a gold on uneven bars at the 1985 world championships, as well as a bronze at the 1988 Olympic games. She added this to her haul of 2 Olympic and 5 world medals. Here's her bars. I love the dismount.


Silvia Mitova was a Bulgarian gymnast. She competed at the 1992 Olympics and probably would have been a bigger deal if she'd been a Soviet. Such a shame about the fall in event finals or i believe she could have medaled, she certainly deserved to. Here's her floor exercise, just look at the first pass!


So, who do you think from the current scene could fade into the background? I always seem to forget about Chellsie Memmel...

Unhappy Olympic Endings

It seems today that the slightest slip can be taken by the media and turned into the unhappiest of endings, but a look back at gymnastics history can reveal times when a sad ending was far more than an unexpected slip from the balance beam.

The first women’s gymnastics Olympic team event was held at the Amsterdam Olympics of 1928. The home nation of Holland took the gold. Today, an Olympic gold medallist can rely on a comfortable life post Olympics. However, Helena Nordheim, Estella Agsterribe, Anna Polak and Judikje Simons (all members of the gold medal winning team), and their coach Gerrit Kleerekoper, were all killed in gas chambers 15 years later. The only Jewish member of the team to survive world war two was Elka de Leve.

In 1948, the Olympics were held in London. Czechoslovakia were dominant in the team competition, which is surprising due to the late injury of a team member. After arriving in London, 22 year old Eliska Misáková became ill and was assigned an iron lung. On the day of the team competition, she died of paralysis.
When the Czech flag was raised at the medal ceremony, it was decorated with a black ribbon.

In Mexico City, 1968, the soviet women took their fifth team title. Years later, in 1994, a member of the team (Olga Karasyova) appeared on German television, claiming that she and the whole team had been forcibly impregnated prior to the games to raise their levels of male hormones. Girls without a boyfriend or husband were forced to have sex with their coach. Ten weeks later they were given abortions.

One of the most political gymnastic figures is Věra Čáslavská, who famously turned her head down away from the soviet flag during a medal ceremony. However, she paid for this act of defiance as the authorities made sure than she remained unemployed for the years after the Olympics. Every year she appeared at the office of the sport minister requesting a job, for seven years she was refused.

The favourite to win the 1980 all around title was defending world champion, Yelena Mukina. Sixteen days before the Olympics, Mukina broke her spine during practice. She was unable to speak for six months and was paralysed until her death in 2006.

Many would say that an Olympic medal isn’t a matter of life or death. But after Svetlana Boguinskaya came third in the all around at the 1988 Olympics, this was such a disappointment to her coach that it reportedly contributed to his suicide three days after the games. Sveltlana went on to win the all round title at the 1989 world championships and dedicated her medal to her former coach, Lybov Miromanova.