Top 10 Most Successful Soviet Gymnasts Montage

I said yes to supersizing this 'tage. The most successful gymnasts from USSR based on World and Olympic individual medals.

Success was worked out by: total number of World and Olympic individual medals won (no team medals counted), if there were ties it was split by number of golds, then number of silvers, then number of bronzes. If there was still a tie, Olympic medals were given precedence.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• gymnastics
• gymnast
• montage
• success
• top
• 10
• larissa
• latynina
• ludmilla
• tourischeva
• olga
• korbut
• sofia
• muratova
• polina
• astakhova
• elena
• shushunova
• yelena
• nellie
• kim
• nelli
• svetlana
• boginskaya
• tamara
• manina
• natalia
• kuchinskaya

[cayrab1]

I dont' know how Svetlana Khorkina is not on this list

[MostepanovaFan]

@cayrab1 By only being a junior when the Soviet Union existed

[JoshuaM0912]

Was that Olga doing a double back from a roundoff??  When was that performed?

[MostepanovaFan]

@JoshuaM0912 It was, she did it in the team competition at the 1976 Olympics, but she didn't do it in the all-around.

[sochisochi]

They made this sport!

[daydreamer526]

Is this Bohemian Rhapsody?? I want this music!!!!!!!

[achristi20]

Bellayellow10,

No, that is Elena Shushunova. That was her opening tumbling pass from the 1985 World Championships.

Change of topic: does anyone know if any modern (post 1972) gymnast, male or female, who even attempted to tie the medal haul of Latynina?

[cmhy0529]

what is the title of the song?

[bellayellow10]

The girl at 4:32 was elena mukhina, NOT ELENA SHUSHUNOVA

[bertera1614]

the soviet gymnast will be always the best...unforgettable

[happyjellyfish]

@kayper54 Produnova was definitely on a league of her own. Her eponymous vault has a starting point so ridiculously high it's almost not even fair! I Think she (and Shushunova) were more interpreters than classical dancers, and it worked so beautifully for their style. I miss them both!

Podkopayeva was in the Ukrainian equivalent of Dancing With the Stars! She was gorgeous, you could always tell that she had a real passion for ballet; apparently her nan took her to recitals from a very young age

[kayper54]

@happyjellyfish Of course, Podkopayeva (oh, those names!) was the other end of the spectrum. I remember thinking that she could quit gymnastics on one day and walk in the Bolshoi Ballet Co. the very next.

[kayper54]

@happyjellyfish I guess I meant that the early gymnasts had ballet backgrounds BEFORE starting gymnastics, rather than bringing young gymnastics beginners at 5 or 6 and then training equally in gymnastics and dance. But I do remember wondering about Produnova at the time; she, to me, was all acrobatic power with very little "dance" in her FX. That's just my own observation, though; I have no idea how much dance experience she had. But I did think that she could've easily competed with the men!

[kayper54]

@happyjellyfish LOL! I've heard some stories about the "athletic" events created for those early Olympics. Unfortunately, my brain isn't recalling any specifically (but I still think curling isn't a "sport," it's a game.) My own personal experience goes back to Olga Korbut. I'm old enough that I looked to her as my inspiration. By the time Nadia came along I was largely out of gymnastics (one does not get very far in gymnastics if she has a pathological fear of the UB apparatus.) ;)