Oksana Chusovitina

Oksana Chusovitina
— Gymnast —
Chusovitina in 2011
Personal information
Full name	Oksana Aleksandrovna Chusovitina
Country represented	Uzbekistan
Former countries represented	Germany (2006–2012)  Uzbekistan (1993–2006; 2013–present)  Unified Team (1992)  CIS (1992)  Soviet Union (until 1991)
Born	(1975-06-19) 19 June 1975 Bukhara, Uzbek SSR, USSR
Hometown	Köln, Germany
Height	1.53 m (5 ft 0 in)
Weight	44 kg (97 lb)
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Level	Senior international
Years on national team	18  Uzbekistan 7  Germany
Club	Turnteam Toyota Köln
Head coach(es)	Svetlana Boguinskaya(personal) Shanna Polyakova
Former coach(es)	Svetlana Kuznetsova
Music	Phantom of the Opera (1996–2000), The Godfather Theme (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean (2006 & 2008)
Eponymous skills	Hop-full pirouette, full out dismount (uneven bars); layout-full out, double full in back out, double back full out(floor exercise)
World ranking	Vault: 1 (2016)[1] (see archives)
Medal record Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 1 1 0 World Championships 3 4 4 World Cup Final 1 0 1 Asian Games 2 3 2 Asian Championships 0 3 1 European Championships 1 2 1 Representing  Unified Team Olympic Games 1992 Barcelona Team Representing  Germany Olympic Games 2008 Beijing Vault World Championships 2011 Tokyo Vault 2006 Aarhus Vault European Championships 2008 Clermont Vault 2011 Berlin Vault 2012 Brussels Vault 2007 Amsterdam Vault Representing the  Soviet Union World Championships 1991 Indianapolis Team 1991 Indianapolis Floor exercise 1991 Indianapolis Vault Representing  CIS World Championships 1992 Paris Vault Representing  Uzbekistan World Championships 2003 Anaheim Vault 2001 Ghent Vault 2005 Melbourne Vault 1993 Birmingham Vault 2002 Debrecen Vault World Cup Final 2002 Stuttgart Vault 2002 Stuttgart Balance beam Asian Games 2002 Busan Vault 2002 Busan Floor exercise 2002 Busan All-around 2002 Busan Balance beam 2014 Incheon Vault 1994 Hiroshima Vault 1994 Hiroshima Uneven bars Asian Championships 1996 Changsha Vault 1996 Changsha Uneven bars 1996 Changsha Floor exercise 1996 Changsha All-around

Oksana Aleksandrovna Chusovitina (Russian: Оксана Александровна Чусовитина; born 19 June 1975) is a world and Olympic level gymnast who has competed for the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan, and Germany.

Chusovitina's career as an elite gymnast has spanned more than a quarter century. She won the USSR Junior Nationals in 1988 and began competing at the international level in 1989, before many of her current rivals were even born. She is the only female gymnast ever to compete in seven Olympic Games, and is one of only two female gymnasts to compete at the Olympics under three different national teams: the Unified Team in 1992; Uzbekistan in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2016; and Germany in 2008 and 2012. Chusovitina has also competed in 10 World Championships, three Asian Games and three Goodwill Games. Chusovitina holds the record for the most individual world championships medals on a single event (nine, on the vault).

Chusovitina is one of a few women, along with Cuban Leyanet Gonzalez, Soviet Larisa Latynina, and Dutch Suzanne Harmes, to return to international competition after becoming a mother. Australia's head women's coach, Peggy Liddick, said Chusovitina is a role model and an inspiration.^[2]

Soviet Union

Chusovitina began gymnastics in 1982.^[3] In 1988, at the age of 13, she won the all-around title at the USSR National Championships in the junior division.

By 1990, Chusovitina was a vital member of the Soviet team, and was sent to compete in various international meets. She was the vault gold medalist at the 1990 Goodwill Games and nearly swept the 1990 World Sports Fair in Japan, winning the all-around and every event except the uneven bars. The following year she won the floor exercise at the 1991 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships and placed second on the vault. In 1992 Chusovitina competed at the Olympics with the Unified Team, shared in the team gold medal and placed seventh in the floor final. She also won her second World Championships vault medal, a bronze.

Uzbekistan

After the 1992 Olympics, when the former Soviet gymnasts returned to their home republics, Chusovitina began competing for Uzbekistan and continued training with Uzbekistan head coach Svetlana Kuznetsova, also her personal coach. Conditions at the national training facility in Tashkent were a far cry from the Soviet Round Lake training center, and Chusovitina was forced to practice on antiquated, and in some cases, unsafe equipment. In spite of this setback, she was able to consistently produce world-class routines.^[4][5]

Chusovitina represented Uzbekistan from 1993 to 2006 and competed for them at the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympics, the 1994, 1998 and 2002 Asian Games and the 1994 and 2001 Goodwill Games. During this era she was the strongest gymnast on the Uzbekistan national team, earning more than 70 medals in international competitions and qualifying to the Olympics three times.

For her contributions to gymnastics, Chusovitina was granted the title of "Honored Athlete of the Republic of Uzbekistan" by the Uzbekistan Ministry of Cultural and Sports Affairs.^[6] In 2001, she was named as the first WAG representative to the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG)'s Athletes' Commission.^[7] In addition, Chusovitina graduated from the Sports University in Tashkent.^[8]

In late 1997 Chusovitina married Uzbek Olympic wrestler Bakhodir Kurbanov,^[9] whom she first met at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima.^[8] The couple's son, Alisher, was born in November 1999.^[3][5]

Germany

In 2002, Alisher was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL).^[10] Seeking advanced medical treatment for their son, Chusovitina and her husband accepted an offer of help from Shanna and Peter Brüggemann, head coaches of the Toyota Cologne club, and moved to Germany.^[11] With prize money earned from gymnastics competitions, along with the help of the Brüggemanns and members of the international gymnastics community who fundraised and donated to the cause, Chusovitina was able to secure treatment for Alisher at the University of Cologne's hospital. ^{[2][5][12][13]} While Alisher underwent treatment in Cologne, Chusovitina trained with the German team.

Uzbekistan released Chusovitina to compete for Germany in 2003. However, due to rules requiring three years of residency, she was unable to gain German citizenship immediately. From 2003 to 2006 she trained in Germany but continued to compete for Uzbekistan, representing her native country at the 2003 and 2005 World Championships and the 2004 Olympics. In 2003, 12 years after her world championships debut, Chusovitina won the gold medal on the vault at that year's world championships in Anaheim.^[10]

In 2006, Chusovitina obtained German citizenship.^[11] Her first competition for Germany was the 2006 World Championships, where she won a bronze medal on the vault and placed ninth in the all-around.^[14]

Recent years

In July 2007, she won the all-around title at the 2007 German National Championships.^[15] At her first European Championships, she placed second on the vault.^[16] At the 2007 World Championships in Stuttgart, Chusovitina helped the German squad to a 10th-place finish in the preliminary round, which qualified them to send a full team to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, where she was the oldest female competitor in her discipline.^[5] She qualified for the vault event final where she finished in 2nd place, thus earning the first individual Olympic medal of her career. Chusovitina competed on three events at the 2008 Women's European Championships in Clermont-Ferrand, France, helping the German team to a seventh-place finish in the team finals. In the vault event final, she defeated reigning European champion Carlotta Giovannini to win the gold medal.^[17]

At the 2008 Olympics, the German team placed 12th in the qualifying round of competition. Chusovitina qualified to the individual all-around final, where she placed ninth overall.^[18] She also qualified in fourth place for the vault final.^[19] In the vault final, she won the silver medal with a score of 15.575.^[20]

Retirement and return

Despite earlier claims that she would attempt to compete in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, Chusovitina announced in April 2009 that she intended to only participate in the 2009 World Gymnastics Championships in October, and that she would not continue. The championships, she stated, are "enough." ^[21]

However, she returned to compete in some competitions in 2010 (including the 2010 Houston National Invitational). She won the silver medal on vault at the 2011 European Championships, the 2011 World Championships and the 2012 European Championships.

Chusovitina competed at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games for Germany.^[22] The games were a remarkable sixth Olympics for Chusovitina, who qualified for the vault final where she placed in fifth behind her German teammate, Janine Berger. Afterward Oksana declared she would retire as a gymnast and concentrate on coaching.^[23]

She returned the following year and announced plans to continue competing through the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.^[24] She went on to qualify an individual place for Uzbekistan at a qualifying event in Rio de Janeiro in April 2016.^[25] By competing, she set a new record as the oldest gymnast to ever compete at the Olympic Games at the age of 41 and 2 months and the only gymnast ever to compete in seven consecutive Olympic Games, surpassing the record of six that she set in 2012 with Yordan Yovchev of Bulgaria.

Skills

As a vault specialist, she is one of only a few top female vaulters in the world who does not perform a Yurchenko style vault. Instead, she competes only front handspring entry and Tsukahara-family vaults.

Eponymous skills

Competitive history

Chusovitina on a 2001 Uzbek stamp

• 1994 Goodwill Games Mixed Pairs Silver Medal with Yevgeny Shabayev, Aleksei Voropayev and Elena Grosheva.
• Competitor for Soviet Union

• Competitor for CIS

• Competitor for Uzbekistan

• Competitor for Germany

• Competitor for Uzbekistan

Year-end world rankings

Vault

2010: #9^[26]
2011: #1^[27]
2013: #1^[28]
2015: #1^[29]

Beam

2010: #28
2013: #24
2015: #45

Floor

2015: #7

See also

• List of top medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Oksana Chusovitina.

• Oxana Chusovitina at the International Federation of Gymnastics
• List of competitive results
• Chusovitina(Floor Exercise skills)

Olympic Champions in Artistic Gymnastics - Women's Team All-Around
1928 Netherlands 1936 Germany 1948 Czechoslovakia 1952 Soviet Union 1956 Soviet Union 1960 Soviet Union 1964 Soviet Union 1968 Soviet Union 1972 Soviet Union 1976 Soviet Union 1980 Soviet Union 1984 Romania 1988 Soviet Union 1992 Unified Team 1996 United States 2000 Romania 2004 Romania 2008 China 2012 United States 2016 United States
1992:  Unified Team (EUN), Svetlana Boginskaya, Tatiana Gutsu, Oksana Chusovitina, Tatiana Lysenko, Yelena Grudneva, Rozalia Galiyeva

World Champions in Artistic Gymnastics – Women's Team Competition
1934:  Czechoslovakia 1938:  Czechoslovakia 1950:  Sweden 1954:  Soviet Union 1958:  Soviet Union 1962:  Soviet Union 1966:  Czechoslovakia 1970:  Soviet Union 1974:  Soviet Union 1978:  Soviet Union 1979:  Romania 1981:  Soviet Union 1983:  Soviet Union 1985:  Soviet Union 1987:  Romania 1989:  Soviet Union 1991:  Soviet Union 1994:  Romania 1995:  Romania 1997:  Romania 1999:  Romania 2001:  Romania 2003:  United States 2006:  China 2007:  United States 2010:  Russia 2011:  United States 2014:  United States 2015:  United States
1991:  Soviet Union (URS), Svetlana Boginskaya, Oksana Chusovitina, Rozalia Galiyeva, Tatiana Gutsu, Natalia Kalinina, Tatiana Lysenko