Yelena Shushunova

Yelena Lvovna Shushunova (Russian: Елена Львовна Шушунова; Leningrad, Soviet Union, April 23, 1969—St. to the Soviet Union. She was an Olympic, world and European champion in the 1980s. She was one of the five women who won all the titles in the major competition: Olympic Games, world championships and European championships. Larisa Latynina, Věra Čáslavská, Ludmilla Tourischeva and Lilia Podkopayeva are the other four. She was recognized as a pioneer in complex skills, the high consistency of it, as well as the explosive and dynamic outputs of it.

Beginnings

He made his international debut at the 1982 European junior championships in Ankara Turkey, where he placed a discreet 15th in the overall competition, although he attracted attention for his victory on floor. In 1983 he had several outstanding results, including victory on floor at the Soviet Union championships and third place at the Spartakiada in Moscow.

Like so many other athletes, he suffered the effects of his country's boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, in which he would have seriously counted on achieving one or more medals. Instead he had to settle for participating in the Friendship Games, an alternative competition to the Olympic Games that was held in Olomouc (Czechoslovakia), where athletes from countries that did not come to Los Angeles participated. Shushunova finished third in this competition, whose level was at least equal to that of the Olympics, given that the Soviet women were the best in the world at that time.

World and European champion

In 1985 she established herself as one of the great gymnasts in the world by proclaiming herself European champion in Helsinki, Finland, and shortly afterwards in Montreal, Canada, world champion, although tied for first position with her compatriot Oksana Omelianchik. Of course, the Soviet Union was the team champion, and Shushunova also won gold on vault, silver on floor and bronze on balance beam.

In 1987 the Romanian gymnasts broke out with great force, and Shushunova suffered a double defeat against them. First in the European Championships held in Moscow, where she defeated the Romanian Daniela Silivas, while Shushunova had to settle for bronze, tied with the Bulgarian Diana Dudeva (second was the Soviet Alevtina Pryakhina). And shortly after, the most important one at the World Championships in Rotterdam, Netherlands, where the Romanians overthrew the Soviets in the team competition, while in the individual competition the gold went to the Romanian Aurelia Dobre, with Shushunova second and Daniela Silivas third. Shushunova won gold on floor and vault, silver on balance beam and bronze on asymmetrical.

Seoul Games 88

The 1988 Seoul Olympics were the most important competition in Shushunova's sporting career, and the event for which she will always be remembered. In games without boycotts, supremacy in world gymnastics was finally going to be elucidated, and this time the Soviets demonstrated their great category and defeated Romania in the team competition. However, what is most remembered from these games is the agonizing confrontation between the Soviet Shushunova and the Romanian Daniela Silivas to win the gold medal in the individual competition.

Both gymnasts were close to perfection in each and every one of their exercises, so that they reached the last of the apparatus, the vault, with a slight advantage (0.025 points) for Daniela Silivas over Shushunova. In the vault Silivas obtained a score of 9.950. In this way Yelena Shushunova, who jumped after her, had it in her power to surpass the Romanian, but to do so she needed to get a 10, that is, a perfect jump.

One of the most remembered scenes of the Games is that of Yelena concentrating to perform the final jump, with her hieratic face, while at her side Daniela Silivas, who had already jumped, awaits the outcome of the competition. They were moments of great tension and intensity that culminated when Shushunova made her jump and the unanimous score of the six judges was 10. Shusunova was thus proclaimed Olympic champion, the only title she was missing in her extraordinary sports career. Shushunova and Silivas starred in one of the best competitions in history in Seoul. Days later Silivas achieved great success by winning three apparatus finals, while Shushunova had to settle for silver in asymmetrical and bronze in balance beam. Curiously, this time she failed in the jump, the apparatus that had made her the champion of the general competition.

Withdrawal

After the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, she retired from gymnastics. She was 19 years old and in the period 1985-1988 she was the great dominator in this sport. Some of her exercises are prohibited today due to their great risk for gymnasts.

In 2004 she was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.

Death

She died in the city of Saint Petersburg on August 16, 2018, at the age of 49, as a result of complications that arose after pneumonia, reported the Russian Sports Gymnastics Federation. She was buried in the Cemetery of Bogoslovskoe of said city.