Maria Filatova – the first ever picture taken of her doing gymnastics! By kind permission of Maria Filatova Kourbatova My first memory of Maria Filatova is a little girl with huge, white ribbons in her hair, so tiny she seemed to have to stand on tiptoe to be able to see over the balance beam. At 4’ 6” tall, she was the smallest competitor at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, yet she was already part of the Soviet senior team, competing alongside such established stars as Ludmilla Tourischeva, Nelli Kim, Elvira Saadi and Olga Korbut. The ‘Siberian Sparrow’, trained in Leninsk-Kuznetsk by Innokenty Mametyev since a very early age, celebrated her 15 th birthday on the 19 th July 1976, the day of the team final. That night, she slept with her first – not her last - Olympic gold medal beneath her pillow. For all her cuteness, Maria Filatova was a fearsome gymnast and competitor. If the crowd were awed by the pyrotechnics of Romanian technician Nadia Comaneci, they we...
Reporting and analysing Russian gymnastics since 2010. Includes original and exclusive interviews with leading coaches and gymnasts, and historical issues dating back to the Soviet Union. The first blog to report extensively on the sport using Russian language sources. I read, I argue, and I have opinions. Be warned.


Woo! I spot Grishina and Paeska There too :) Makes me very happy. They didn't pick very flattering shots of Komova did they?
ReplyDeleteOh oops I thought this link was for the video they released in Penza sorry lol
ReplyDeleteIf you go into the right post and make your comment there, I will delete these posts.
ReplyDelete