What's your first Olympic gymnastics memory?

[Indy]

Phoebe Mills on beam in Seoul. I remember sitting in my living room watching it on our little TV with my mom, mesmerized.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Gutsu falling off the beam in 1992. I taped compulsories too, so must’ve seen those before optionals, but I don’t recall watching them during the actual Games.

 

[Bogwoppit]

1976 Montreal olympics. I watched the opening ceremony in a crowded living room of a neighbour, he bought the first colour tv in our block and invited us all in.

Then he let me and my brother go back each day to watch a bit more, I saw Nadia’s 10. Wow that blew my mind. I did gymnastics, but had never seen elite level routines.

Interestingly I ended up moving to Montreal in my 20’s from the UK

I am also old.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

When we had a similar discussion on the old board, it turned into one of my absolute favourite threads ever. The joy that was in some of those stories.

 

[megansothername]

This was mine too! I was so obsessed I used to watch that tape on repeat until it was unwatchable.

Quoting myself here, but I’m just now remembering how all the gymnasts who did a valdez at the 92 Olympics inspired me to teach myself one in our living room. I just showed up at gym one day able to do it, much to the surprise of my coach!

 

[arabiandoublefront]

Not being able to stay up until the end of the 1996 Olympics women’s team final. My mom moved an old black and white TV into my room so I could watch, but I fell asleep being the tired 7-year-old I was.

 

[cats]

I don’t actually remember the Barcelona Olympics, but I do remember that I was a big Kim Z fan and was steamed that Shannon won everything. I distinctly remember getting up in the morning and my mom telling me that Kim fell on beam and got a 3. Imagine my shock when I learned like 15 years later that she actually got a 9.3.

I found the gymternet just after Athens, which was my first inspiration to look for gymnastics content online. At the time I had never heard of any skills not done at the gym I went to as a kid. I remember staring at a ShanFan animation for hours trying to figure out (a) wtf a standing Arabian was and (b) how on earth it could be possible.

 

[Seyonne]

My first gymnastics memory was Nadia in Montreal. I would have been seven at the time. I immediately crawled on top of the back of the sofa and attempted a cartwheel. My mother screamed, I fell to the floor, and somehow ended up with a lampshade on top of me. I was forbidden to EVER do that again.

 

[Nanou84]

I remember Dominique Moceanu falling on her head at Atlanta Olympics.

 

[Dex]

Iam lame! I reacted in this topic about my first gymnastics memory, not Olympic… Sorry!

My first Olympic memory was 88 in Seoul and the fight between Silivas and Shoushounova. I SO wanted Silivas to win and was very disspointed when she didn’t

 

[emmade]

Andreea Raducan FX in the AA.

I was studying for my grade 12 exams and my family would call me whenever gymnastics came on. Gymnastics was the only thing that would get me away from the books. I remember following the infamous drug scandal obsessively and was outraged that she had been stripped of the gold. I also remember looking up gymnastics on the internet and was able to find pictures of gymnasts, but not much else because I was stressed I would use up all the monthly data. Internet was really not great.

 

[Big_rock_show]

I remember watching Kim Zmeskal as a little girl, but I don’t remember what competition or when it was. By 1996 Atlanta I was hooked though!

 

[irichluck21]

1992 Barcelona Olympics I remember by memory.
But 1984 and 1988 were watched according to my mother. We watched them together, but I was very young in 1984 and 1988 I remember Greg Louganis diving and the swimming more so than the gymnastics.

I got really into it in 1996 because I was also able to start using the Internet to follow gymnastics message boards. Outofboundness was my first.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I’m a bit younger than you I think, but I too have the vaguest memory of what in retrospect was Seoul. What I remember is watching people swinging round a bar and wanting them to just keep doing giants, and the whole thing was very amusing. My mum is a fan since Korbut and would’ve been watching, she remembers Shushunova v Silivas, so that’s probably what it was!

 

[L_R]

72 Olympics Olga Korbut

 

[Angelika]

Summer of '76 - we had a heatwave in the UK that year. I was 7 and had recently started gymnastics after doing ballet for a year. I remember watching a serious looking girl on bars with my Dad then when her score came up my Dad shouted to my Mam - ‘Come and see this kid - it’s perfect!’. Thus began my love affair with this wonderful sport… I spent the rest of the summer ‘practicing’ in the garden and at class so I could go to the Olympics one day…

 

[jorge29]

I remember seeing olympics games 2000 (i think was 15 years old) and seen to Andreea Raducan and was great because her floor routine was great and was almost like see to Nadia Comaneci . well Romania is one of the powerful countries on WAG

 

[glamafonic]

My whole family gathering around the TV to watch 1992 team finals because of Dominique Dawes. After which I, of course, was determined that I would learn to do a backhandspring in the yard so I could join her at the next Olympics.

 

[anon65539698]

In 1972, I was 12, watching Olga Korbut in the Olympics. This motivated my dad to put me in a gymnastics class, because his dad was from eastern Europe. Her back tuck on beam was a big deal. But now I have to cringe at the unsafe back handspring on the high bar and the near-paralysis-inducing dive back chest roll in her floor routine and other hyperflexible spondylosis-inducing elements – do not try these at home! And to complete the inversion of this fairy tale turned nightmare, finding out years later that she and her teammates were molested by her coach is really sad.

Ugh, this is turning into a dark post - sorry!

In the 7 or so years I did gymnastics, the good outweighed the bad. I have a lot of positive memories.

 

[MaryClare]

1996, I was 5. I told my mother I wanted short hair like Khorkina and Grosheva. Thankfully a few days later, I’d forgotten about it and my long hair stayed. I was already enrolled in gymnastics and I remember my coaches thinking it was a catastrophe that the USA had won.