Svetlana Leonidovna Boginskaya

Svetlana Leonidovna Boginskaya medal table
1990
Gymnast
Belarus , Soviet Union , United Team
Olympic Summer Games
gold	1988 Seoul	team
gold	1988 Seoul	Leap
gold	1992 Barcelona	team
silver	1988 Seoul	ground
bronze	1988 Seoul	All-around
Gymnastics World Championships
gold	1989 Stuttgart	All-around
gold	1989 Stuttgart	team
gold	1989 Stuttgart	ground
gold	1991 Indiana	team
gold	1991 Indiana	Balance beam
silver	1987 Rotterdam	team
silver	1991 Indiana	All-around
silver	1992 Paris	Leap
silver	1987 Rotterdam	Balance beam
European gymnastics championships
gold	1989 Brussels	All-around
gold	1989 Brussels	Floor exercise
gold	1989 Brussels	Leap
gold	1990 Athens	All-around
gold	1990 Athens	Floor exercise
gold	1990 Athens	Balance beam
gold	1990 Athens	Leap
gold	1990 Athens	Uneven bars
gold	1992 Nantes	Uneven bars
silver	1996 Birmingham	All-around

Svetlana Boginskaya ( Belarusian Святлана Леанідаўна Багінская / Swjatlana Leanidauna Bahinskaja, Russian Светлана Леонидовна Богинская * 9. February 1973 in Minsk ) is a former Soviet and Belarusian gymnast . The three-time Olympic champion and five-time world champion managed to win all five individual competitions at the European Championships in Brussels in 1990 . At 1.61 meters, unusually tall for an artistic gymnast, Boginskaya impressed during her career primarily with her elegance and feminine charisma. Boginskaya is one of the few gymnasts who have participated in three Olympic Games.

life and career

Athletic career

Boginskaya started doing gymnastics at the age of six. At the age of 10 she was accepted into the Soviet Round Lake Training Center for Artistic Gymnast near Moscow . She won her first international medals at the Junior World Championships in 1986 in Karlsruhe . There she won the gold medal in the all-around competition and on the balance beam and the silver medal in the jump and on the uneven bars . A year later she became a member of the Soviet senior national team. At her first gymnastics world championships in 1987 in Rotterdam , the Netherlands , she won the silver medal with the Soviet team in the team all-around competition behind the Romanian gymnasts and the bronze medal on the balance beam.

Boginskaya managed at the 1988 Summer Olympics to intervene in the duel between the best gymnasts at the time, Daniela Silivaș and Jelena Schuschunowa . In the all-around event she won the bronze medal behind Shushunova and Silivaș, in the team all-around event she won the gold medal with the Soviet team led by Shushunova, in floor exercise she won the silver medal behind Silivaș and, surprisingly, she won the jump clearly ahead of Romanians Gabriela Potorac and Daniela Silivaș. Boginskaja was only able to enjoy this triumph for a short time. Three days after the Olympics, her long-time coach Lyubov Miromanova unexpectedly committed suicide . Miromanova, who left no explanation for her suicide, was more than just a trainer for Boginskaya. For the young athlete, the loss of her most important caregiver was difficult to cope with. She lost motivation and stopped exercising. The Soviet coaches managed to get Boginskaya to continue.

With her new trainer Ludmilla Popkovich, Boginskaja began to prepare for the 1989 World Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart . With victories in the individual all-around, in the team all-around and on the floor, she became the most successful gymnast of these world championships. Boginskaya later said that after winning the individual all-around title, she felt she had won the title both for her late coach Lyubov Miromanova and for her sake. In the same year she also won the gold medal in the individual all-around , on the ground and on the jump at the European Gymnastics Championships in Brussels . On the balance beam and on the uneven bars, she just missed the medal ranks as fourth. A year later, Boginskaya achieved a triumph that only a few gymnasts have achieved so far. She won all titles to be awarded at the European Gymnastics Championships in Athens . She won both in the individual competition and on all four devices (a team competition was not held). At the Goodwill Games in Seattle in 1990 , she also won gold with the team, silver in the individual all-around, gold on the ground and bronze in the jump.

Boginskaya could not defend the title in the individual all- around at the 1991 World Gymnastics Championships in Indianapolis, USA. She won the silver medal behind the American Kim Zmeskal . On the balance beam, however, she won the gold medal as well as with the Soviet team. While Zmeskal was able to win the titles on the floor and on the balance beam at the World Gymnastics Championships in Paris in 1992 , where no all-around competitions were held, Boginskaya could only win the silver medal in the vault. At the time when small, powerful, young athletes determined gymnastics, the tall, elegant gymnast was rarely victorious. At the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona she won the gold medal with the team of the Commonwealth of Independent States , but could not win a medal in any of the individual competitions. In the jump she just missed the podium in fourth place and in the individual all-around and on the balance beam she took fifth place. After the Olympic Games, the then 19-year-old athlete announced her retirement from active gymnastics.

After Boginskaja had earned her money with show gymnastics for several years, she decided to make a comeback in 1995. She went to the USA and began to train in Houston under the successful Romanian gymnastics coach Béla Károlyi . Her training group also included Dominique Moceanu , who later became Olympic champion . In her first international championship after her return to competitive sport, the 1995 World Gymnastics Championships , she and the Belarusian team took eighth place in the team competition and 16th place in the individual all-around competition. But the following year she achieved a sensational success at the European Gymnastics Championships. Behind the Ukrainian Lilija Podkopajewa , the 23-year-old Belarusian won the silver medal in the individual all-around. With this performance she led the Belarusian team to a good fourth place. Furthermore, she was able to qualify for all device finals. On the balance beam, she also just missed a medal in fourth. She finished sixth on the other machines. At the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta , however, she could not confirm this performance. In the individual all-around event she finished 14th and with the Belarusian team sixth. Only in the jump did she reach the final, which she finished in fifth place. After her third Olympic Games, Boginskaya finally ended her sporting career.

In 2005 Boginskaja was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame .

Life after the athletic career

The mother of one son and one daughter, who is married to an American, is the owner of two companies in Houston . On the one hand, she runs a shop for gymnastics equipment and is also the owner of the Olympia Gymnastics Camp . There she organizes training camps for young gymnasts, in which she herself participates as a trainer alongside other former successful gymnasts.

Web links

• Swetlana Boginskaja in the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame (English)
• Swetlana Boginskaja in the database of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (English)
• Swetlana Boginskaja in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Biography and competition results
• CBS Sports biography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com, Balance Of Power (6 August 1990)
2. ↑ homepage Dominique Moceanu , interview with Svetlana Boginskaya ( Memento of the original on 24 June 2008 at the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (September 23, 2007) 
3. ↑ Olympia Gymnastics Camp