Skip to main content

Elena Gurova - Tiny Dancer

By
 

Baby face ... Born 30 December 1972, Elena Gurova was one of the Soviet Union's gymnastics prodigies who blossomed early, but never quite showed her full flowering.  At the age of 14, Elena took multiple medals at the Soviet Cup and Soviet Championships to qualify as a member of her country's team at the World Championships in Rotterdam.  Despite a stunning floor routine, including a double layout opener and a final tumble of full twisting double back, Elena received just one medal there, a silver for her team contribution.  She failed to qualify to any individual final, thanks to the incredible depth of a Soviet team that included eventual World - and Olympic - Champions Shushunova, Omelianchik, Boguinskaia and Baitova.


The following year she competed at the World Sports Fair, taking the AA gold with, by her standards, watered down routines.  Sadly she was not named to the Soviet Olympics team and her competitive record then runs dry - does anyone know any more?


In the picture, taken in 1985, Elena would have been only twelve years old.  This was the first time that I saw her compete at international senior level, at Wembley in the Champions All competition.  


Elena trained in Moscow at the same CSKA club as Elena Shevchenko, Olga Chudina and, later, Anastasia Grishina.  She shared the same meticulous approach to her technical elements, was especially powerful on bars and beam and is one of the gymnasts credited as having competed the double twisting Yurchenko first.  Her coaches, Viktor and Irina Razumovsky, still work at the same club today and look after one of Moscow's leading gymnasts, Daria Mikhailova.


You can watch Elena's 1987 floor routine here.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Unknown19 January 2017 at 21:00

    This young woman was SPECTACULAR in the 80s ... on youtube, check out her performances at the 1987 Chinichi Cup and Tokyo International. I thought for sure that she would be the next World Champion on floor -- so few gymnasts were doing such difficult tumbles. Alas, it just wasn't in the cards. Please let her know that gymnastic fans in the US really respect her efforts and remember her still.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous21 January 2017 at 17:28

    Stratovich will take a surgery in Germany as soon as posibel according to Alfosov and Rodionenko , Ivan will miss Russian Nationals and Euros http://rsport.ru/artist_gym/20170121/1115218505.html and Nagornyi will start full trainings only in the end of january http://rsport.ru/artist_gym/20170121/1115219527.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous30 January 2017 at 19:52

    I had once read that she had a brief stint with judging. But apparently she was said to now be an office employee of some sort in Moscow. But that was a while ago. Who knows what she is doing now.

    She was so good from 1984 to 1987 but after that, she really seemed to struggle with growth and body changes. Still, she left a great body of work.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous7 February 2017 at 15:35

    I thought her first international appearance was in 1984 at the DTB Cup. She also competed in Druzhba that year finishing second to Silivas (due to Gurova having a poor beam routine).

    ReplyDelete
  5. Linda8 December 2017 at 18:25

    Love this photo. The Black and White of Shushunova was wonderful. I too would cut out any scrap of information about the Soviets from the time of Olga Korbut. I did not know what gymnastics was before 1970 Olympics.

    Would subscribe to Euro gymn mags, it looks like the newspapers in Britain did much more on the Soviet Tours even before the two boycotted Olympics.

    Have been painting and doing computer graphics of Natalia Frolova, Baraksanova and Ilyenko and Shaposh for a number of years. So glad for the gymnternet to see these performances again and again and again.

    I love Queen Elizabeth's comments on grace and artistry. It seems like they have tried to destroy all the emotion in all the arts. The Guardian has an article online about a book called The CIA and modern art. Art Renewal, the most visited museum online for realistic art has some great articles on this subject to do with the visual arts.



    https://www.facebook.com/Movement-Works-Studio-470457819669706/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Queen Elizabeth9 December 2017 at 09:18

      Linda, your art is beautiful and I have shared your page on RRG’s Facebook site. Do you ever sell your art?

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering last summer - Nelli Kim, her judges and Viktoria Komova

By
In view of Nelli Kim's recent interview , Lupita and I thought it timely to revisit the performance of some of the WTC President's judges over past competitions ... this article from 27th August 2012 is reposted here, as a reminder. You will find a link to the FIG's newly published book of results at the Olympic Games here .  This year, they have broken down the judge's execution scores so you can see exactly how each judge evaluated the gymnasts' performances.  It makes for interesting reading - if only I had more time to analyse each judge's marking.  A skim reading already highlights multiple inconsistencies in individual judges' marks and makes you wonder why they bother with the jury at all. I have taken the time to look at the reference judges' scores for the top four in the women's all around.  The FIG explains here what their role is, and how they are selected.  I even used my calculator, which is a risky thing in my hands.  M...
42 comments
Read more

Breaking news - Stretovich in, Ignatyev out

By
Valentina Rodionenko earlier today confirmed that Ivan Stretovich will take the place of Nikita Ignatyev on the main Russian gymnastics team.  19 year old Stretovich, from Novosibirsk, Siberia, is Russian Cup champion on the pommel horse and high bar.  His first major senior competition was the 2014 World Championships where he performed on pommels only.  Stretovich was originally selected as a reserve and the decision to bring him onto the main team was based on his superior performance quality compared to Ignatyev, according to Rodionenko. For the women, the news is that Angelina Melnikova is recovering well from the hamstring injury she aggravated at one of the final control competitions at Round Lake.  Valentina says that she is back to training her full routines again.   Sources - MAG - http://rsport.ru/rio2016_gymnastics/20160802/1011352078.html WAG - http://rsport.ru/rio2016_gymnastics/20160802/1011409100.html New - video of the girls training, ...
23 comments
Read more

Elena Gerasimova retires, invited to coach junior national team

By
Valentina Rodionenko speaks to TASS.  Google translate - Tokyo Olympic participant Elena Gerasimova has decided to end her career in the Russian national artistic gymnastics team. This was reported to TASS by the senior coach of the national team Valentina Rodionenko. "Lena Gerasimova has decided to end her sports career, but she wants to continue competing in student competitions," Rodionenko said. "The athlete has been plagued by injuries in recent years, which made it very difficult for her to endure the training loads that the members of the national team experience. Gerasimova is a very honest and very responsible person. That's why she came and said that she wants to end her career and compete only in student competitions." "I know how responsible and hardworking this girl is, so we suggested that she think about becoming a coach of the youth team on one of the apparatuses in the future. We will count on her. And now she works as a coach at the Anton ...
Post a Comment
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more