Oksana Omelianchik - 1987 Rotterdam - VT

Oksana Omelianchik - 1987 Rotterdam - VT

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Sports

Tags:

• Oksana
• Omelianchik

[ferency98]

Oksana's first vault should have scored 10. It was original, and it was outrageous difficulty for that time with extreme innovation. Courtney Kupets, I think, did this vault in 2003 or 2004 in a competition (that is 16 or 17 years later).

[elizabethrice3]

In my opinion, one of the most underrated gymnasts ever.

[LCAmarkymark]

I feel that she is stressed more than anything...the pressure to do well in the soviet system of gymnastics is crazy. I mean the soviets already know they were going to win the gold they just had to put together a team so every competition becomes a trial...I would be stressed out too...knowing that Bogi, Lasch, and a few others were rising through the ranks because the judges liked them. We forget that we are lucky to see Omelianchick at all when you consider the competition is that rough

[tedsler]

@bbhouk1 I can only imagine what the pressure would be on the reigning world champion on the soviet national team. also she prob has grown a bit in height but stayed the same in weight which makes her look very thin. rumours (here?) say she was ill, no one knows apart from herself. still she was an amazing gymnast and i wish she had had a longer career than she did. i love the little girl who brought to us the joy with her gorgeous smile and the birdy routine.

[MrMartinportnoy]

@ferency98 Oksana sat down her first vault in the AA (you can watch it somewhere here), I assume the coaches felt it was risky to send her to finals, plus her advantage over Baitova in preliminaries was very little (Oksana: 9.9 / 9.95; Baitova: 9.95 / 9.875 = 0.25 pts)

[ferency98]

@MrMartinportnoy

I did not know that Oksana was removed from the vault finals in 1987. That was a ridiculous decision.

[MrMartinportnoy]

@ferency98 I think worse than not scoring a 10 was her removal from the vaulting finals in favour of Baitova. That decision was punished by Baitova finishing out of the medals...

[gutsfinky]

It's said that she was sick at this competition, with the flu or something. She certainly seems like a shadow of her Montreal self, maybe it was the flu, or maybe she was tired and overworked.

[bbhouk1]

that THING is the once smiling, beautiful little girl who stole our hearts with her birdy routine?

she looks terrible! what did they do to her? starve her?

thats what it looks like.

[cocacola1018]

She should have gotten a 10.0 on her first vault and she does look a little sick and malnourished.

[EmmaTav]

She looks sick here, malnourished. There's a real difference between Montreal and Rotterdam. Her smiles certainly seemed a lot more genuine two years earlier.