Skip to main content

Remembering Alla Misnik - a Soviet star of 1981

Image
By
Alla Misnik collecting her prize as 1981 Moscow News all around champion.  Courtesy RIA Novosti

I was yesterday reminded of the genius of Alla Misnik, who won three medals at the Madrid European Championships in 1981 (bronze all around, silver uneven bars, silver floor exercise, qualifying to all four event finals).  Misnik had travelled to Madrid with team mate Natalia Ilienko, who here managed a meagre silver medal on beam, but went on to win gold in team and floor exercise at the Moscow World Championships that autumn.  The same year Misnik had won the Moscow News tournament and, later, the USSR Cup, but sadly never competed at a World Championships.

Misnik was born in Kharkov, Ukraine on the 27th August 1967.  She was coached by Valentin Shumovsky, (whose team of young gymnasts also included 1978 Junior European beam and floor exercise champion, Natalia Karamushka).    Zaglada (2010) writes of Shumovsky's care in training Misnik to the peak of her abilities, despite a weakness in the young girl's spine which made her talent on bars, and one -armed balances on beam, all the more extraordinary.

Alla Misnik died of a stroke on July 11th 2006 at the age of 38.  But we can still marvel at these excellent videos of her innovative gymnastics at the 1981 European Championships (with thanks to GymnasticsHVMeets on Youtube).

Uneven Bars




Balance Beam



Floor




Read more on Alla at the Gymnastics Greats website and at Gymn Forum's excellent database.





Labels:

Comments

  1. M15 September 2012 at 06:39

    Interesting, never knew her, of course, before my time :)

    Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mustafina on Roschina

By
ROTTERDAM (Netherlands), October 24. /TASS/. Russian gymnast Lyudmila Roshchina, who won silver in the individual all-around at the World Championships, succeeded precisely because she focused on challenging herself rather than competing for medals. This is the assessment of Aliya Mustafina, a coach for the Russian national team and a two-time Olympic champion, who spoke to TASS. "Of course, I wasn't certain that Lyudmila would end up on the podium in the all-around, though I certainly hoped she would," Mustafina said. "The general instruction was not to think about medals or rankings. As they headed from the warm-up area to the competition floor, I told the girls: 'Don't worry about where you place—just focus on challenging yourselves.' And Lyusya managed to do exactly that." "Her mindset played a major role, too; she was in a very positive frame of mind even back in the warm-up area. So, I wouldn't say that winning this silver was an incre...
Post a Comment
Read more

Aliya Mustafina - new interview

By
Aliya in her new Olympic Games outfit.  The teams were kitted out at the Bosco Olympic centre in Moscow last week 'Europeans went quite well, for me personally and for the team.  There were no big blunders or falls and we were able to show a good result.  If we continue to work in the same way as we approach the Olympics, everything will be fine ... Although of course we will need to do a little more in Rio.  For the Olympic Games, everything will be right. 'My knee [Aliya suffered a torn meniscus for which she had surgery last November] is all right, there are no problems with it, I am not worried. 'We will try to fight for first place. But we will be happy with any medals . As usual, our main rivals will be the teams of America, China and the UK. 'It will now be very, very difficult to fight Simone Biles [in the AA] because she has a very large D score. In general, in the individual competition, my goal is just to perform well. The most important thing in the Olymp...
37 comments
Read more

Simone Biles - 'on her way to Olympic gold' in the opinion of Russia

By
Prosport is carrying the following article about Simone Biles, who they tip as a favourite for Olympic gold.  I thought I would share it here (Google translate in italics) as it gives an interesting perspective on where the Russians feel the sport is heading.  Elena Zamolidchikova and Alexander Alexandrov are both extensively quoted. Atypical American. Simon Biles on the way to Olympic gold Simone Biles, American gymnast, turned 18 on March 14, 2015. Shortly before this, the first in US history absolute Olympic gymnastics champion Mary Lou Retton called Biles perhaps the most gifted athlete in the history of the sport. In 2014, Simon became the first gymnast for 40 years to win four gold at a World Championships. But Biles is not only talent. This is the first gymnast in recent years from the United States, who is not going to earn on its potential Olympic success. Text: Alexander Vladimirov March 15, 2015 9:35 The article on Prosport/Photo: Lintao Zhang / Getty Images / Fotob...
42 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more