#olga mostepanova

[freifraufischer]

A non-exhaustive list of gymnasts whose ages are known to be falsified.

“Dick does she look 14 years old to you? [...]  I tell you we have a story going around the gymnastics community that is pretty traditional that when a young Romanian girl is asked her age she looks to her coach for the answer.”  --Bart Conner, 1985 American Cup

Since Wikipedia can’t be trusted to be right for a lot of details of gymnasts careers...

Olga Bicherova

Born in either 1967 or 1968, during Bicherova’s elite career the age requirement was that you had to turn 15 in the year of competition.  Either birthdate would have made her too young for the 1981 World Championships where she won two gold medals, one in the all around and one with the team.  If you take the 1967 birthdate she could have been age eligible for the 1982 World Cup where she won 5 medals, 3 of them gold except that one of the requirements of the World Cup at that time was previous participation in the World Championships.  [In fairness to Bicherova the above picture is slightly mean of me to use as she never grew very tall.]

Ecaterina Szabo

Born in 1968, during Szabo’s elite career the age requirement was to turn 15 in the year of competition meaning her first year of senior eligibility should have been 1983 and 1983 is when her first major titles occurred.  Except she was competing as a senior in 1982 winning a number of international invitationals (which she may have been eligible for anyway because juniors and seniors often competed together at those).  It’s unclear to me why her birthdate was changed though it might have simply been something that happened when the government changed her name to hide her Hungarian ethnicity.  Szabo’s first language is Hungarian and she was born in Transylvania as Szabó Katalin.  She still goes by Katalin in her private life.  She was of age during the 1984 Olympic Games and the 1983 World Championships

Olga Mostepanova

Born in 1970, during Mostepanova’s elite career the age requirement was to turn 15 in the year of competition (or 14 for the World Championship that qualified for the Olympics).  She has said herself that while she was competing her passport was wrong by “years”.  By the accounts as I understand them her first senior year should have been 1985.  Mostepanova was the top Soviet gymnast in 1984 winning the alternative games held for countries that boycotted the 1984 Olympic Games (and the reality of her age falsification makes playing ‘What if?’ for who should have won the 1984 Olympics awkward).  Aside from her 5 Friendship Games gold medals, she would have also been age ineligible for the 1983 World Championships where she won 4 medals, 2 gold (team and beam) and 2 silver (all around and floor).

Oksana Omelianchik

Born on January 2, 1970, during Omelianchik’s elite career the age requirement was to be turn 15 in the year of competition and her first year of eligability was 1985.  None of Omelianchik’s elite career honors are tainted however she says at one point she was given a passport with her birthdate shifted by a week (which would have made her able to compete in the 1984 Olympic Games).

Daniela Silivaș

Born in 1972, during Silivaș’ elite career the age requirement was that you turn 15 in the year of competition meaning her first year as a senior elite should have been 1987.  In 1985 she won a European bronze medal on beam, a World Championship gold medal on beam and a silver with the team.  She also won 3 medals at the 1986 World Cup.  She was of age for the 1988 Olympic Games

Kim Gwang-suk

Only the universe knows what year Kim Gwang-suk was actually born.  She was listed as 15 years old for three consecutive years by the North Korean government from 1989-1991, and then 17 years old at the 1992 Olympic Games.  She may have been as young as 11 when she competed in the 1989 World Championships.  In 1991 she won the World Championship gold on the uneven bars and at least one of her birth years means she might have been age eligible for that competition (which may be why FIG was reluctant to take away that medal, officially they decided that as she wasn’t personally involved in the fraud she could keep it).  The North Korean team was banned from the 1993 World Championships for the sloppy fraud.

Alexandra Marinescu

Born in 1982, the age requirements changed in the middle of Marinescu’s elite career.  For the 1996 Olympic Gams you had to turn 15 in the year of competition and starting in 1997 you had to turn 16.  The Romanian state issued her a passport giving her birthdate as 1981 and it is worth noting that this was the post revolution Romanian government.  She competed at 1995 Worlds, 1996 Worlds, and the 1996 Olympic Games with a stated birthdate that would make her just old enough to compete in those competitions.  In fact she was younger than both Dominique Moceanu and Vanessa Atler.  At no point during her entire elite career which lasted 3 years was Marinescu of age.  She has 3 World medals (2 gold for the team in 1995 and 1997, 1 silver on beam from 1996), and one Olympic medal (bronze in the team from 1996).  The FIG database still lists her incorrect birth year and the Romanian gymnastics federation claims that she is lying about the age falsification (as well as other abuses she has been outspoken about).

Dong Fangxiao

Born sometime in January of 1986 (the exact day is still disputed), during Dong’s elite career the age requirement was to turn 16 in the year of competition.  Her first year of senior competition should have been 2001 but she competed at the 1999 World Championships under the rule at the time that if you are eligible for the Olympic Games you cold compete at the World Championships the previous year.  She won a bronze medal at both 1999 Worlds and the 2000 Olympics with the team.  In 2008 she applied to be a technical official at the Beijing Olympic Games she listed her true birthdate instead of the 1983 birthday under which she had competed.  An investigation of the case resulted in both medals being stripped.

Hong Su-jong

At different competitions during her career Hong Su-jong was entered with a birth year of 1985, 1986, and 1989.  At some of these competitions she was entered with a different birth year as her twin sister Hong Un-jong (Olympic and World Champion who has never herself been implicated in age falsification).  Hong Su-jong’s most significant medal was the 2007 World silver on vault which she is believed to be of age for but she competed at the 2004 Olympic Games with the 1985 birthdate and for that competition she was too young.  Hong Su-jong was eventually banned permanently from competition and North Korea was banned until October 2012 meaning that her sister was unable to defend her 2008 Olympic vault gold.

You may notice that He Kexin is not on this list...

During (and after) the 2008 Olympic Games questions were raised about two time Olympic Gold medalist He Kexin’s age (as well as that of several of her team mates).  Unlike all of the above cases where either inconsistent age information was entered at official FIG competitions or the gymnast themselves have stated that their birth year was changed, He’s birthdate has always been consistent in FIG documents and she herself has always denied falsification.  Her age was listed as earlier in entries for some domestic meets and that was reported by foreign press as evidence that she was too young.  This ignores the fact that age falsification (in both directions up and down) was common by city and provincial teams in China to enter age bracketed competitions and that is what may have been going on.  Either way these competitions are not governed by the FIG so the inconsistent birth information at them was not their problem.  I am generally agnostic about He’s birth year.  There is strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that her age was changed (that doesn’t have to do with domestic competition forms or her appearance) however I understand why the FIG investigation decided that there was not enough evidence for them to act.

Sooooo the only people punished for age falsification have been Asians.  That’s kind of racist isn’t it?

Two things can be true at the same time.  Yes it is highly suspicious that only North Korea and China have been punished for this while there are documented cases of European federations also doing this.  However I think it’s important to note that these cases are not all the same.  North Korea was punished for providing inconsistent birthdates for the same gymnast at competitions.  The evidence of the offense was right there in FIG’s paperwork.  China was punished when Dong applied to be an official with FIG giving an inconsistent birth year.

All of these other cases involve gymnasts whose paperwork was consistent during their careers.  

The fact that FIG is only accepts that level of proof and unwilling to accept (especially in Marinescu’s case) the gymnasts own statements about their birth year certainly doesn’t make them look like they are particularly interested in punishing this kind of cheating unless absolutely forced to.  I would offer the counter point that FIG is not the police and they do not have the ability to determine if there is something else going on with such public statements and they often came out well after the standard 10 year statute of limitation for stripping medals (except in the case of Marinescu).  Some have suggested that FIG was reluctant to act on Marinescu’s statements because stripping Romania of those medals would promote China who was also age cheating at the time.  I don’t think you have to go to that place when the answer is just as likely that FIG has a very narrow standard of proof for revoking medals on the basis of age falsification and has even erred on the side of allowing the gymnast (Kim Gwang-suk) to keep a medal won while clearly under age.

Are FIG officials racist against Asians?  There is a lot of evidence for that.

Has FIG only punished Asian nations for age falsification?  Yes.  But it’s more a case that North Korea is really bad at this and the Dong case has fairly unique circumstances.

[mo-salto]

Olga Mostepanova | Spartakiade 1982

[queen-chengfei]

thinkin about mostepanova :’)

[czarinakanaeva]

requested by anonymous

[gymfanconfessions]

[illyria-and-her-pet]

Gymnasts from the same era who don’t try to stop bills that protect gymnasts from sexual abuse and have medals from competitions that weren’t boycotted

Olga Mostepanova performing one of the best beam routines of all time at the 1984 Alternate Games where she became the only gymnast to ever have a perfect 40 all around competition. At the Alternate Games, she won team, all around, vault, beam, and floor gold. She would have made that other gymnast irrelevant if the boycott didn’t happen. She has 5 world medals (3 gold, 2 silver).

While most gym fans acknowledge that Mostepanova and the Soviets would have swept the floor with that other gymnast, Hana Ricna gets very little recognition. She came in 2nd to Mostepanova at the 1984 Alternate Games and was the first to do the stalder tkatchev on uneven bars, which is still a very popular skill today. She had one of the most difficult uneven bars sets at the time because she did 3 major releases: her eponymous skill, “the Ricna” (E), the Deltchev (D), and the Comaneci (E). She has 2 world medals (1 silver, 1 bronze).

Ma Yanhong’s 1984 uneven bars gold is the only title from 1984 that I‘m 100% sure would have still happened even if there was no boycott. My favorite routine from her is that one she did at 1981 Worlds. She did a jump full turn to the low bar mount, clear hip 1/1, hecht 1/2, and her famous F rated dismount. Sadly, she was robbed here and only given a 9.9, so she came in 2nd to Maxi Gnauck who was given a perfect 10 despite having a less difficult routine and a hop on the dismount. She has 3 world medals (1 gold, 2 silver).

Maxi Gnauck is known for her uneven bar work, but she was also a great all arounder and floor worker. In 1979 and 1980, she was able to do a tucked full in and triple twist on the floor with no springs. At the 1984 Alternate Games, she came third in the all around and won bars and floor. Springs were added to the floor by then and she did the best piked full in and triple twist in that era. She has 9 world medals (5 gold, 1 silver, 3 bronze). She also has 4 medals (1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze) from the 1980 Olympics, which were also boycotted, but the countries that boycotted wouldn’t have really made a difference in any of the results in that games except for maybe on uneven bars.

Natalia Yurchenko’s vault entry is probably the most innovative skill to ever happen in gymnastics. For decades now, almost every top gymnast has done a yurchenko style vault. She won the team and all around gold at the 1983 World Championships, but suffered an injury in vault finals that took her out of the rest of the championships. She came back from the injury to win the team and vault gold, as well as the uneven bars silver at the 1984 Alternate Games. She also made the 1985 Soviet team that won gold at Worlds. Other notable skills she did were her tkatchev + deltchev combination on uneven bars and loso mount and yurchenko loop on beam.

Tumblr only allows you to embed 5 videos, but special shout outs to baby Elena Shushunova who won the all around bronze at the 1984 Alternate Games and then went on to have one of the greatest careers ever in 1985-1988 and Julianne Mcnamara, the American gymnast that actually has a medal from a non boycotted competition with her 1981 uneven bars bronze.

And of course shout out to Ecaterina Szabo who won 4 gold medals and actually beat that other gymnast in the all around final in 1984. Sadly, there was no new life and she fell on uneven bars in the team optionals, so the score carried over and she lost by 0.05. She has 10 world medals (2 gold, 6 silver, 2 bronze).

[gym-montage-recs]

undefined

1986 USSR Display: Everytime We Touch by gymn4life

(Youtube version)

[gymfanconfessionsnac]

Why is the tkachev 1/2 on uneven bars named after Natalia Kononenko even though multiple gymnasts performed the skill in the 80s?

I am not doubting you, but which other gymnasts performed the skill before Nataliya? I thought she was the first and I would love to see who else was doing it way back in the 80s.In general, the naming of skills hasn’t been very well managed until quite recently. For example, although Olga Mostepanova was the first to perform the skill we now know as an Onodi (at Worlds in 1983, I believe) the skill is actually named after Henrietta Onodi and is listed that way in the Code.If I had to take a guess in this case, I would assume that Nataliya got the skill named for her because she/her coach went through the proper channels to submit it as a new skill to the FIG well before 2011 Worlds, which was the competition at which she had it named. Any other gymnasts who did the skill previously may not have successfully competed the skill in World/Olympic competition, may have failed to follow the proper “new skill” procedure, or may just have been unlucky. It’s hard to say for sure.-Merk

[viktoriakomova]

1984 bitterness

OLGA MOSTEPANOVA WUZ ROBBED BY HER OWN GOVERNMENT AND THEY BOYCOTT MAKES MY CRYYYY WHY DID THEY DO THAT TO HER??? WHY??? [also all the other girls who woulda been olympic champions but olya hurts the most] [also omelianchik] [also yurchenko]

[gymnasticscoaching]

Olga Mostepanova 1985 Floor Worlds 1985 in Montreal. That Soviet team was magnificent. Olga so artistic. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

[freifraufischer]

So a Gymcastic rant:

Late last night I decided for some reason I'd watch the youtube version of their LA vs Olomouc episode from about a month ago.

It was late so I didn't check some of their takes until this morning but when I did check them how little work they went into actually figuring what was on the Olomouc video is pretty amazing. For context they know they don't have all the Olomouc routines to compare phase to phase against LA so they're doing a hand wavy "the general quality of the apparatus" discussion between the rival 1984 games. Which I want to be clear I'm actually fine with. But the problem is that their answers are basically vibes. I'm not even going to bring in the 1984 code. A lot of the statements they imply about potential corruption or bad scoring can be answered by ... actually looking at the scores.

Which for the record the entire Olomouc score matrix is on wikipedia.

So first of all some context... the Olomouc footage is a mess and it was pretty clearly put together by some Czechoslovakian media person who picked whatever routines appealed to them because it's a mix of routines from optionals/all around/event finals. And they didn't pick the best version of a routine that would be good for propaganda value.

For instance take Hana Říčná's bars. I'm going to talk a bit about the gymcastic take on Říčná but they really loved her bars. Which is fair, her bars are amazing. You can find them at 4.54 in the above video and it's absolutely a modern ahead of it's time bars routine that I have absolutely no problem saying would have been competitive for a bars medal in LA and should have been.

But it also highlights a weirdness about judging quality of routines at Olomouc based on this footage. Because that was not Říčná's highest scoring bars routine from that meet which you would think the Czechoslokian film producers would have picked for the star of their own team. Říčná did optionals bars 3 times here, team optionals, the all around, and event finals.

Team Optionals: 9.90 All Around: 10.00 Event Finals: 9.50

So this routine is obviously from her optionals and she fell in event finals (or had some other kind of disaster she came last in the bars EF). Why the film producers didn't put their home star's perfect bars 10 in this I have no idea.

But I want to point out something about the people they did show in this film on bars and where these routines come from in the competition cross referenced with their scores.

Olga Mostepanova (URS) - 9.75 - This means it's her team optionals routine because she got a 10 in the AA and didn't make the bars final.

Birgit Senff (GDR) - 9.80 - This is a puzzling choice. Seniff is a good bars worker because it's hard to be an East German gymnast and be a bad bars worker but she only did optionals bars once at Olomouc in in team optionals. She was tied for 3rd best bars worker on the East German team here. Why they put her routine in here instead of Gabriele Fähnrich who got a 9.90 optionals bars and a 10.00 in the event finals I don't know. Other than that Senff has a flashy round off over the low bar mount that would later be named after Martina Jentsch at 1987 worlds. But Senff didn't make the AA or EF. I get why they can't judge how Fähnrich would have done in LA because the Olomouc footage doesn't show her.... but it's worth pointing out that she would be the 1985 World Champion and got a bronze on bars at Olomouc so I am inclined to include her in what if scenarios about an non-boycotted LA.

Hana Říčná (TCH) - 9.90 - As discussed this comes from her Team Optionals

Natalia Yurchenko (URS) - 9.95 - Team Optionals (she got a 9.90 on bars in the AA and 9.975 in the bars final).

Alena Dřevjaná (TCH) - 9.95 - Could be any of her 3 optionals bars routines here as she got the same score in Team Optionals, the AA, and the bars EF.

Maxi Gnauck (GDR) - 10.00 - Could be either Team Optionals or the Event Final but not her AA (which I will discuss later).

Now seeing that list you might go "oh so the Olomouc footage is just the Team Optionals." But no, the routines from other apparatus in the film are from different phases. This is not a representative sample of the bars quality at this event ... which is fine because the fact that we have any footage of this event is a miracle. But the thing I want to demonstrate here is that unlike what gymcastic said... it's not the case that "we don't know what phase these routines are from". It's not that hard to figure out. It's weird because it was clearly put together by someone in a studio that didn't know what they were doing but what else is new in gymnastics coverage?

Anyway I want to go back to their judging of the AA because their conclusion was that who should have won the hypothetical non boycotted games would have been Mostepanova, then Retton (they had decided that Szabo's optionals bars makes the LA results clear which ... I actually have no opinion on because i've never seen all the compulsories). But they take issue with Hana Říčná's silver here and suggest it was a corrupt gift to the host country. Now I have... issues with implying/saying that about a competition with no new life where we have a little over 24 minutes of video. I do think it's also worth saying Říčná now lives in the states (and owns a gym) and her daughter is in NCAA right now on the Stanford team so it's not like she or her family wouldn't hear this speculation. Normally I don't know that that should come into a discussion like this but ... I kind of think it's a little irresponsible when they're this far out over their skis in speculation territory.

Gymcastic takes issue with Říčná's AA medal because of her vault and beam. The 10.00 on vault with obvious errors (2.18 in the above video) is a silly 10 no doubt. But... like... all 1983/84 scoring is a bit silly. Particularly vault. The vaulter right before Říčná in that section of the film (which is from the AA) is Shushunova who gets a 9.95 with a HUGE step. I'm fairly certain in the wacky world of early 1980s vault judging they would have considered those vaults appropriately ranked even if the 10 is not a 10. Which goes back to the attitude about imperfect 10s of the era. Look at the ranking in competition not just the single routine to pick deductions. Do I like that? No. But it was how it was seen at the time by many judges.

Now Říčná's AA beam (timestamp 10.16 in the above video) also has a major leg up wobble. It wouldn't have cost her gold (because you know... Mostepanova got a 40...) but it's undoubtedly a major mistake. But ... she did get deducted. She got a 9.85 for that beam. You can argue that she should have been deducted more maybe... but that was a fairly low score for a competitive AAer in the bizarro world of 1983/84.

But I do think it's possible to tease how why Říčná won silver here. Let's start with Gnauck who came in with the second place score from compulsories/optionals but she had some sort of major bars disaster (I'm assuming a fall) and that knocks her down. It was very much obviously a much greater error than a wobble in Říčná's beam. If she had done what she had done in every other bars routine at that meet she would have won silver free and clear. 1984 Shushunova is an excellent optionals gymnast so despite coming into the AA in 5th she is able to claw her way up because of Gnauck's poor bars and Yuchenko's ding on her floor.

So why didn't Shushunova get silver? After all she'd tie for the world championship the next year and win the 1988 AA. Well remember I described her as an excellent optionals gymnast. She got a 9.70 on compulsory beam and a 9.75 on compulsory floor which in a world of an 1984 AA was a hole she was lucky to dig herself out of for a bronze (I hope Elena sent flowers to Gnauck for her fall because otherwise she doesn't win a medal in this AA). Říčná had an advantage over her from compulsories.

Like most things in pre 1989 gymnastics... in an era with both compulsories and no new life if you think something looks like corruption maybe it's just that you can't get your brain around how the competition was actually structured. Even if you take issue with Říčná's vault and beam, why she wins silver does not require a conspiracy theory and as much as this was a silly exercise in the first place I do think Gymcastic (and Jessica's) "well everything was corrupt" statements about the 1980s gives many fans a false impression and diminishes the accomplishments of the gymnasts from the era.

Some more odds and ends from their take about this competition:

They were very taken with Irina Baraksanova. Which is understandable Baraksanova is a lovely gymnast to watch she's one of my favorites. But there was a certain amount of "she was robbed" in the way they talk about her in the episode. But you see... Baraksanova had terrible compulsories. Or at least terrible compulsories for a Soviet here. The lowest on the entire team and an even a 9.55 on compulsory floor which for a Soviet is actually pretty shocking. Something bad must have happened in that compulsory floor. On a team with Mostepanova, Shushunova, and Yuchenko she wasn't going into any finals and I think anyone at the time would have found it weird to suggest she was robbed of anything. She got a team gold medal and contributed ot that result and that was what she was there for.

But there is something telling about their brief talk about Baraksanova. Jessica pronounces her name a few ways (even jokes about turning it into a combination of Obama's name). It's a little weird because it's not that hard a Russian name to say... but also it's not that hard to know how to say it because she was a very active figure in 1985/86. She was one of the two gymnasts Galieva'd out of the 1985 AA so the commentators on that worlds mention her name a lot and she was THE antagonist figure in the 1986 American Cup where Kristie Phillips is depicted as a break out star and the next Mary Lou (remember Mary Lou was the Mary Lou of 1985 American Cup). That she doesn't know how to say her name (and she does say it right at least once) tells me that they didn't look at any other routines from these gymnasts than the 24ish minutes of Olomouc footage and the LA Olympics that they had previously watched for another episode.

But you know that's Jessica and her memory is spotty (she apparently is now saying Mike Jacki was in the bar in her very fanciful version of the Marsden 1987 cheating story ... which at least is not the version from the 1988 press accounts). But Spencer, Spencer is more responsible he would have done his research. Let me tell you why I don't think he bothered either. Besides the fact that neither of them mention Gabriele Fähnrich in their bars discussion he remarks how he didn't recognize Shushunova with a pony tale. Shushunova was a dominating figure the entire next quad. She has that pony tale through not only 1984 but 1985 and 1986 and she doesn't cut her hair short until AFTER 1987 Europeans. How much of Shushunova's career have you watched Spencer? Or have you just watched 1988 a lot?

I'm sorry that this is a rant but Hana Říčná is a gymnast a lot of fans only know for her eponymous bars skill and lazily implying she didn't deserve one of the major medals of her career angered me a lot.

[mostepanovagym]

If this is not the cutest thing you have ever seen in your life then show me receipts!!

[mo-salto]

I love insanely dramatic gala lighting

Olga Mostepanova at a 1986 exhibition in London

[thebroodingmacaroon]

I can’t seem to abandon this work entirely, I look at it, work on it a bit (photoshopped the red ribbon on it haha), leave it, rinse and repeat. Maybe I get that weird feeling that I still got to do something because I got used to filling every thing I can fill up with ink.lol

Olga Mostepanova

2014

Ballpoint pen on paper mounted on canvas

25" x 32.5" (full size)

Reference photograph by Tom Theobald

[flaviasaraiva]

Olga Mostepanova