Elena Mukhina Elena Mukhina Personal information Full name: Elena Vyacheslavovna Mukhina Country Represented:  Soviet Union Date of birth: June 1, 1960 Place of birth: Moscow, Russia, USSR Hometown: Moscow, Russia, USSR Date of death: December 22, 2006 (aged 46) Place of death: Moscow, Russia, USSR Discipline: Women's artistic gymnastics Level: Senior international Club: CSKA Moscow Head coach(es): Mikhail Klimenko Eponymous skills: Muchina Salto (Floor Exercise)

Medal record World Championships Gold 1978 Strasbourg All Around Gold 1978 Strasbourg Floor Exercise (tie with Nellie Kim) Gold 1978 Strasbourg Team Competition Silver 1978 Strasbourg Balance Beam Silver 1978 Strasbourg Uneven Bars European Championships Gold 1977 Prague Balance Beam Gold 1977 Prague Floor Exercise Gold 1977 Prague Uneven Bars Gold 1979 Copenhagen Uneven Bars Silver 1977 Prague All Around Silver 1979 Copenhagen Floor Exercise Bronze 1977 Prague Vault

Elena Vyacheslavovna Mukhina (Russian:Елена Вячеславовна Мухина) (June 1, 1960-December 22, 2006), born in Moscow, Russian SFSR, was a former Soviet gymnast who won the All-Around title at the 1978 World Championships at Strasbourg, France.

Biography

Elena Mukhina (first name also spelled "Yelena"; last name sometimes spelled "Muchina") lost both of her parents by the time she was five years old. She was raised by her grandmother, Anna Ivanova. As a youngster she took an interest in gymnastics and figure skating. When an athletic scout visited her school, she eagerly volunteered to try out for gymnastics. She later joined the CSKA Moscow ("Central Red Army") sports club. In recognition of her accomplishments, Mukhina was inducted into the CSKA Hall of Fame [1].

Career

Up until 1975, Elena Mukhina was an unremarkable gymnast. She was not a serious competitor and Soviet coaches largely ignored her. Then, she teamed up with men's coach Mikhail Klimenko and transformed into one of the most show stopping gymnasts of her time. She burst onto the scene at the 1978 World Championships in Strasbourg, France. In one of the most stunning all-around performances in history, she won the gold medal, beating out Olympic Champions Nadia Comaneci and Nellie Kim among others. She also tied for the gold medal in the floor exercise event final, as well as winning the silver in balance beam and uneven bars. She made history in this competition by unveiling her signature moves: a full-twisting layout Korbut Flip on bars; a tucked double back salto dismount on beam (a move that is still being used three decades later); and a full-twisting double back somersault on floor (still an E-rated move in the Code of Points) dubbed the "Muchina". Yet, in spite of these innovations, Mukhina maintained the classic Soviet style, inspired by ballet movements and expressive lines. She quickly established herself as an athlete to watch for at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

A documentary film of the Soviet national team (1978) features Mukhina talking with her coach, Mikhail Klimenko, and footage of her rigorous training regimen [2].

Injury

In late 1979 Mukhina suffered a broken leg, which kept her out of the World Championships in Fort Worth, Texas, a competition in which the Soviet team suffered its first defeat at the hands of their archrivals from Romania. With less than a year until the 1980 Summer Olympics, the pressure was on the Soviet team coaches and doctors to get Mukhina back on her feet and ready for the games. In an interview with Ogonyok magazine, Mukhina blamed the doctors at TsITO (Central Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics) who were serving the National Team for attempting to rush her back into training too soon, saying she begged them not to remove her cast and discharge her because "they're dragging me from home to workouts" and she knew she was not yet healed[3]. When doctors removed her cast against her wishes and had her try walking on the leg, she said that she knew she was walking "crookedly" and that something was not right. The TsITO doctors X-rayed the leg and discovered that the fracture had not healed properly and would not be able to sustain the pounding of gymnastics in its present condition. Mukhina was rushed into surgery that afternoon, but the damage had already been done to her reputation; one of the National Team coaches, she said in the Ogonyok interview, showed up at her bed the day after surgery and outright stated that she "wasn't conscientious" and that she could still "train in a cast." Once more against her wishes, the doctors removed her cast prematurely, and Mukhina returned to training for the Olympics while beginning a strenuous workout program at CSKA Moscow to lose the weight she had gained while laid up from surgery.

Because of lingering weakness in her leg and exhaustion from the grueling weight loss workouts, she had great difficulty re-mastering a signature tumbling run, a Thomas salto (a 1 and 3/4 flip with 1 1/2 twists). On July 31, 1980, two weeks before the Moscow Olympics, Mukhina was practicing this exact move when she under-rotated the salto, crash-landed on her chin, and her spine snapped. She was rendered a quadriplegic. Mukhina was training at the Minsk Palace of Sport when the injury occurred; her coach Klimenko was not present at the time of the accident. The Soviet Union awarded her Order of Lenin in response to her injury and in 1983, Juan Samaranch, the IOC President, awarded her the Silver Medal of the Olympic Order.

Following the injury, the Soviet Gymnastics Federation remained secretive about the events surrounding Mukhina's cataclysmic injury. Coaches all over the world wondered not only what the specific injury was, but how the accident had happened. Initial rumors were that she had fallen on approach to the vault, then newspapers reported she'd fallen on the balance beam and had a blackout but she got back up to finish her floor exercise, then finally word emerged that she had fallen catastrophically during the floor exercises[4]. Elena herself was reclusive following the incident, seldom publicly discussing the accident. In a rare interview with Ogonyok magazine, Elena spoke about the Soviet gymnastics program, criticizing it for deceiving the public about her injury, and for the system's insatiable desire for gold medals and championships:

Mukhina in action

"...for our country, athletic successes and victories have always meant somewhat more than even simply the prestige of the nation. They embodied (and embody) the correctness of the political path we have chosen, the advantages of the system, and they are becoming a symbol of superiority. Hence the demand for victory - at any price. As for risk, well... We've always placed a high value on risk, and a human life was worth little in comparison with the prestige of the nation; we've been taught to believe this since childhood.

"There are such concepts as the honor of the club, the honor of the team, the honor of the national squad, the honor of the flag. They are words behind which the person isn't perceived. I'm not condemning anyone or blaming anyone for what happened to me. Not Klimenko or especially the national team coach at that time, Shaniyazov. I feel sorry for Klimenko - he's a victim of the system, a member of the clan of grownups who are 'doing their job.' Shaniyazov I simply don't respect. And the others? I was injured because everyone around me was observing neutrality and keeping silent. After all, they saw that I wasn't ready to perform that element. But they kept quiet. Nobody stopped a person who, forgetting everything, was tearing forward - go, go, go!"[5]

Despite this, Mukhina took some of the responsibility for not saying no to protect herself from further harm, and noted that her first thought as she lay on the floor with her neck severely broken was, "Thank God, I won't be going to the Olympics."[6]

Aftermath

According to Larissa Latynina's 2004 interview, Mukhina's trainer Mikhail Klimenko was affected by her injury. Mukhina was not expected to be added to the Soviet Olympic team roster. There was little doubt that the Soviet Olympic women's gymnastics team would get the gold medal in the team competition at the 1980 Summer Olympics, as it did at all previous Olympics. Nevertheless, Klimenko wanted Mukhina to train because he wanted to become the "Olympic champion's trainer." Soon afterwards Klimenko emigrated to Italy, where he now lives with his children.^[7]

Her condition notwithstanding, Mukhina was a guest columnist for Moscow News[8] in the late 1980s. Her injury was a featured topic in an A&E documentary More Than a Game; and her World Championship performance is captured in the ABC Sports video Gymnastic's Greatest Stars. Mukhina took a keen interest in children and young gymnasts both before and after her injury. She also expressed a deep religious faith [9], and was fond of horses and animated cartoons.

Elena Mukhina died of apparent complications from quadriplegia on December 22, 2006, aged only 46. A memorial service was held in her honor on December 27, and she was laid to rest at the Troekourov Cemetery in Moscow.

Achievements

References

• ^  "An interview with Latynina". Dmitry Gordon's website. Retrieved on March 26, 2006.

External links

• Elena Mukhina at Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
• List of competitive results at Gymn Forum
• Whatever Happened to Elena Mukhina?
• Yelena Mukhina: Grown-Up Games