Gymnastics Nostalgia: Underrated, underdiscussed, or you left us too soon gymnasts

[RedBirdie]

wow, that's a lot more people with two vaults than I expected.

 

[Matilda23]

I don't think anyone mentioned Ekaterina Lobazniuk. Apart from her 2min set up for her beam Arabian, she had many wonderful qualities. But that knee injury just ended it all for her.

I don’t mind long pauses before big skills. If it means a gymnast can perform a difficult skill safely, it’s good.
Lobazniuk was delightful and I thought she would be the 2001 World AA champ. Was difficult for her in 99-00 with Khorkina, Produnova and Zamolodchikova strong in AA too.

 

[RichardL]

I don’t mind long pauses before big skills. If it means a gymnast can perform a difficult skill safely, it’s good.
Lobazniuk was delightful and I thought she would be the 2001 World AA champ. Was difficult for her in 99-00 with Khorkina, Produnova and Zamolodchikova strong in AA too.

That was definitely a great battle for the all-around between those four! What a strong core team, no wonder Arkayev thought he had gold in the bag and chose to flex with the other two spots.

 

[naimushina]

I thought Meng Fei was quite underrated; she had a Mo Salto and bars as well as a gorgeous floor routine

Also, Kim Un Jong (and many other North Korean gymnasts) had amazing bars and I love her pirouettes. I wish the FIG would reduce the emphasis on hitting handstands because I feel like it limits creativity.

 

[MaryClare]

That was definitely a great battle for the all-around between those four! What a strong core team, no wonder Arkayev thought he had gold in the bag and chose to flex with the other two spots.

Originally the last 2 spots were Elena Dolgopolova and Anna Chepeleva, with Anastasia Kolesnikova the alternate. Unfortunately, Dolgopolova picked up an injury at the pre Olympic training camp in Vladivostok.

Dolgopolova was a justiable choice, her 2000 UB routine was 2nd only to Khorkina. However, there was a clear financial motivation here. Dolgopolova and Chepeleva were club mates, training in Volzhsky with Tamara Khokhlova. In 1999, Khokhlova had emigrated to Germany and Dolgopolova and Chepeleva began training full time at round lake with Arkaev as their personal coach (he already had Produnova by this point).

After the Olympics, the personal coaches of every gymnast receives a financial reward if they win medals. So Arkaev would have received half of the coaches prize pot if the team won a medal as 3 of the gymnasts were his. Plus money for any individual medals his own gymnasts won. And as the head coach of the team, an additional payment for that too.

 

[irichluck21]

Yeah starting in 1997, event titles were given out on night 1 of competition.
The exception was 1999, when event finals were brought back after doing only one night of AA.

Maloney was national vault champion in 2000 and she didn't do a vault from another vault family.

I forgot what year it was when the national champion was determined by both nights of competition. 2006?

 

[Matilda23]

Originally the last 2 spots were Elena Dolgopolova and Anna Chepeleva, with Anastasia Kolesnikova the alternate. Unfortunately, Dolgopolova picked up an injury at the pre Olympic training camp in Vladivostok.

Dolgopolova was a justiable choice, her 2000 UB routine was 2nd only to Khorkina. However, there was a clear financial motivation here. Dolgopolova and Chepeleva were club mates, training in Volzhsky with Tamara Khokhlova. In 1999, Khokhlova had emigrated to Germany and Dolgopolova and Chepeleva began training full time at round lake with Arkaev as their personal coach (he already had Produnova by this point).

After the Olympics, the personal coaches of every gymnast receives a financial reward if they win medals. So Arkaev would have received half of the coaches prize pot if the team won a medal as 3 of the gymnasts were his. Plus money for any individual medals his own gymnasts won. And as the head coach of the team, an additional payment for that too.

Did Arkayev have sexual harassment claims against him in the past few years?

 

[MaryClare]

Did Arkayev have sexual harassment claims against him in the past few years?

Not to my knowledge

 

[Ms Motts]

Daria Joura from Australia (Beijing Olympics era). So much potential, so many injuries.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I hoped in Sydney that the next quad would see great AA battles between Yang Yun and Lobaznyuk. It was going to be wonderful.

 

[IratePanda]

I hoped in Sydney that the next quad would see great AA battles between Yang Yun and Lobaznyuk. It was going to be wonderful.

I was also hoping for great things from Dong Fangxiao, but she was forced to retire in 2001 (necrosis of rhe femur).

 

[irichluck21]

No second vault scores available, but per IG QuickHits:

Thank you! I can't seem to find any of the second vault videos either. But its been 22 years so.
2002 was 22 years ago...oy vey.

 

[irichluck21]

@MaryClare I seem to recall that it was Dolgopolova and Kuznetsova on the team originally with Chepeleva and Kolesnikova as the alternates originally.
Then Kuznetsova was pulled and then Dolgopolova got injured.

Kuznetsova was miffed about being pulled and then changed to Bulgaria.

Or am I remembering incorrectly?

 

[RichardL]

I also thought Kuznetsova was on the team originally, but I don't trust my memory about that more than @MaryClare's

 

[MaryClare]

Kuznetsova was not named to the team, her argument was always that she should have been. I do wonder if I’ve perhaps got this round the wrong way with Chepeleva and Kolesnikova though. Perhaps Kolesnikova was always on the team. She like Kuznetsova was trained in St Petersburg. Then when Dolgopolova became injured, she was replaced not by the higher ranked Kuznetsova who’d been part of the team for euros that year, but by one of Arkaev’s own gymnasts, Chepeleva

 

[Sasha]

Whatever happened to Anna Kovalyova? I seem to remember her being at a lot of meets circa 1998 or 1999, then nothing.

 

[KristyJ]

If I remember correctly, she had injuries, and though she competed in the run-up to the Olympics she wasn't at her top form. She likely could've made a strong argument to be the fifth or sixth athlete on that team, though, along with Kuznetsova.

 

[MaryClare]

By summer 2000, Kovalyova was back in form and had a very good showing at the Russia cup (4th AA maybe) however she wasn’t considered for the Olympic team because domestically she failed a doping test. I’m not sure what happened after that, she was competing until 2002 but never regained that level.
There were also a lot of coaching changes. She left her coaches in Novgorod for a while to be personally coached by Arkaev. I think around 1999. By 2000 she was back with them and they turned things around.
She competed successfully for a few years in aerobics. She’s married to Nikolai Kryukov iirc and they have 3 sons

 

[irichluck21]

That's what it was. I remember Kuznetsova being upset in 2000.
I also remember around that time discussion on OOBN and the American Gymnast message boards of Arkayev taking his own gymnasts for financial benefit because Russia was the extreme favorite to win even with just Khorkina, Produnova, Zamo, and Lobaznyuk. They used the previos three only at Europeans. I was under the impression that Arkayev figured he would drop Chepeleva's and Kolesnikova's scores anyway. The only one dropped in team finals was Chepeleva's floor score.

Crazy how Russia had all those mistakes/falls and still almost won. Only .206 from gold is insane.

 

[irichluck21]

That's what it was. I remember Kuznetsova being upset in 2000.
I also remember around that time discussion on OOBN and the American Gymnast message boards of Arkayev taking his own gymnasts for financial benefit because Russia was the extreme favorite to win even with just Khorkina, Produnova, Zamo, and Lobaznyuk. They used the previos three only at Europeans. I was under the impression that Arkayev figured he would drop Chepeleva's and Kolesnikova's scores anyway. The only one dropped in team finals was Chepeleva's floor score.

Crazy how Russia had all those mistakes/falls and still almost won. Only .206 from gold is insane.