Olga Korbut

Olympic medal record
Women's Artistic Gymnastics
	1972 Munich	Team competition
	1972 Munich	Balance beam
	1972 Munich	Floor exercise
	1976 Montreal	Team competition
	1972 Munich	Uneven bars
	1976 Montreal	Balance beam

Olga Valentinovna Korbut (Belarusian: Вольга Валянцінаўна Корбут, Volha Valancinaŭna Korbut; Russian: Ольга Валентиновна Корбут) (b. May 16, 1955 in Hrodna), also known as the Sparrow from Minsk, is a Belarusian, Soviet-born gymnast who won four gold medals and two silver medals at the Summer Olympics, in which she competed in 1972 and 1976 for the USSR team.

Early life

Korbut, who started training at age 8, entered a Belarusian sports school headed by coach Renald Knysh at age 11. Korbut's first trainer was Elena Volchetskaya (an Olympian); she was moved to Knysh's group a year later. With him, she learned a difficult backward somersault on the balance beam.

She ended fifth at her first competition in the 1969 USSR championships. The next year, she won a gold medal in the vault. Due to illness and injury she was unable to compete in many of the tournaments prior to the 1972 Olympics.

The Olympics

At the Olympics, her acrobatics and open display of emotion, in contrast to the stereotypically cold eastern bloc athlete, captivated the Munich audiences, and there she became the first person ever to do a backward somersault on the balance beam. She also was the first to do standing backward somersault on bars, and a back somersault to swingdown (Korbut Flip) on beam. Her bars move is no longer seen in high level gymnastics but the tuck back and Korbut Flip are still very popular (2003 world beam champion Fan Ye performed both in her routine). This excellence in technical skills overthrew the sport's traditional emphasis on gracefulness.

During the Olympics, Korbut was one of the favourites for the all-around after her dynamic performance in the team competition. However, she missed her mount on bars three times and the title went to her teammate Ludmilla Tourischeva. Notwithstanding, she ended up winning three gold medals, for the balance beam, floor exercise and team, and one silver medal in the uneven bars. However, she is most famous for her uneven bars and balance beam routines. Her Olympic achievement earned her the ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year.

In 1973 she won the Russian and World Student (i.e., University) Games and a silver medal in the all-around at the European Championships.

The Soviet coaches and officials had designated Olga as the woman who could beat Romanian prodigy Nadia Comaneci in the 1976 Olympic Games at Montreal. But Olga was injured and her performances were under-par. She was overshadowed not only by Comaneci but by her own teammate Nellie Kim. But she did collect a team gold medal and an individual silver medal for the balance beam.

She graduated from the Grodno Pedagogical Institute in 1977 and retired from Olympic competition thereafter. She married Leonid Bortkevich, who was a member of a popular Belarusian folk band Pesniary. The couple had a son, Richard, in 1979.

The legacy

Korbut was of course a highly decorated athlete, with four Olympic gold medals to her credit. But it is not her results for which she is most remembered. The media whirl that surrounded her after her Olympic debut in 1972 caused a surge of young girls to join their local gymnastic clubs. A sport which had previously seldom been noticed now made headlines. She also contributed to a change in the whole direction of the sport. Prior to 1972, the athletes were rather older and there was a greater focus on elegance than on acrobatics. In the decade after Korbut first came to the world's attention, this completely changed.

In 1988 Korbut was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

Trivia

In 2002 she participated in Celebrity Boxing 2, fighting Darva Conger, but losing by unanimous decision.

In a Saturday Night Live skit from 1976, she was 'interviewed' for Weekend Update on the sudden success of rival Nadia Comaneci, to which she replied 'I would like to take that balance beam and stick it in her eye.' She was played by Gilda Radner.

As of 2004, she is residing in the United States and recently had some problems with the authorities: she was caught allegedly shoplifting. Divorced from Bortkevich in the late 1990s, Korbut is now married to Alex Voinich.

Korbut has reportedly experienced and recovered from anorexia.

External links

• Official website
• Olga Korbut at the International Gymnastics Federation
• List of competitive results
• Her short biography
• Olga Korbut at Olympics.org