August 12, 2021

Ukraine’s superiority in women’s artistic gymnastics: A retrospective

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Natalia Kalinina

The late 1980s witnessed the Soviet Union begin to fall apart, and along with it, so did their women’s artistic gymnastics program. Concurrently, Ukrainian gymnasts were dominating. The year 1989 saw six Ukrainians active at the senior level reach outstanding heights: Oksana Omelianchik, Olga Strazheva, Yulia Kut, Ludmilla Stovbchataya, Olesia Dudnik and Natalia Kalinina. Between starting and alternate positions, each of them made an Olympic or World Championship team between 1988 and 1992. These six Ukrainians were not merely participating in the Soviet program, they were leading it.

At the 1989 USSR Championships, Ukrainian gymnasts won nine out of 15 individual medals. In the all-around competition, Ukrainians finished in first, third and fourth places. The diversity of talent was as impressive as the dominance. Four different gymnasts (Kalinina, Kut, Strazheva and Omelianchik) each won a gold or silver medal. Olesia Dudnik proved herself with a silver medal in the all-around at the 1989 USSR Cup and she had a strong showing the same year at the World Championships.

Tatiana Lysenko

By the year 1990, Ukraine lost two veteran gymnasts when Oksana Omelianchik was forced into retirement by Soviet officials, and Olga Strazheva’s career came to an end after an 18th place finish at the 1990 USSR Cup. However, Ukraine’s Women’s Artistic Gymnastics program was not collapsing, but reloading. Svetlana Ivanova, a promising junior, had turned in what some described as the best performance that anyone from the Soviet team had ever given in the history of the Junior European Championships in 1988.

As impressive as Ivanova was as a junior, by the time of the 1992 Olympics, she had switched to a different discipline of gymnastics. At the 1992 World Championships she chose to compete in acrobatics and just missed out on a medal with her 4th place finish. The two new future stars in artistic gymnastics would turn out to be Tatiana Lysenko and Tatiana Gutsu.

The 1990 season turned out to be a most compelling year in the history of Soviet women’s artistic gymnastics. Svetlana Boginskaya was without a doubt the top Soviet gymnast of 1989 and 1991. In 1990, she spent most of the year battling her Ukrainian teammates for top billing. In the Goodwill Games she finished second to Natalia Kalinina, while in World Cup competition she finished second to Tatiana Lysenko. With Boginskaya, Kalinina and Lysenko fighting it out amongst each other, experts in the sport had already started to notice the potential of Tatiana Gutsu.

This was the top of the program. Further down there were even more Ukrainians hoping to make an impact. At the 1990 USSR Championships there were eight Ukrainian gymnasts in the top 15.

Tatiana Gutsu

Four Ukrainians participated at the 1989 World Championships with two starters and two alternates. One half of the USSR’s top gymnasts were Ukrainian.

Ukraine enjoyed its greatest success in 1991, with Gutsu, Kalinina and Lysenko all making the 1991 World Championship squad. The trio went on to sweep the championships.

Soviet Union disbanded
After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the now former Soviet gymnasts found themselves representing their newly independent countries prior to the 1992 Olympics. They would also be competing in the Olympics as a unified team under the Olympic flag.

At the 1992 European Championships, the former Soviet gymnasts represented their own countries. Lysenko and Gutsu led the way with Boginskaya finishing fifth. At the 1992 CIS Championships (replacing the USSR), four Ukrainians finished in the top eight.

When the Olympic team was selected, only Gutsu and Lysenko made the team, with Stovbchataya being an alternate. Kalinina was left off the team despite her fifth-place finish at the CIS Championships.

This proved to be a most controversial team selection. The Soviet Unified Team left off a very popular gymnast who had solid results in an effort to limit the number of Ukrainian gymnasts. Many argued Kalinina and even Stovbchataya should have made the Unified Team.

There were two Ukrainians on the 1992 Olympic team, more than enough for Ukraine to leave its mark. The Soviet Unified Team won five individual medals, all five won by Ukrainian gymnasts. Tatiana Gutsu won the coveted all-around title.

In retrospect, it was no surprise that Ukrainian gymnasts had been so dominant in the ex-Soviet program at the 1992 Olympic Games. The preview happened four years earlier at the 1988 Soviet-East German Dual Meet, where the Soviets only entered their most prized junior prospects. In 1988, five of the six Soviet competitors were Ukrainian (Gutsu, Kalinina, Kut, Stovbchataya and Dudnik).

The 1992 Olympics would be the final notable competition for the trio of Gutsu, Kut and Dudnik. The trio of Stovbchataya, Kalinina and Lysenko went on to compete into the next Olympic cycle. The latter three would be role models for the next protégé to enter the Ukrainian women’s artistic gymnastic program, one Lilia Podkopayeva.

Podkopayeva would go down in history as one of the greatest. She won the all-around title at the 1995 Worlds and the 1996 Olympics. In doing so Lilia became the first reigning World Champion since Ludmilla Turischeva in 1972 to win the Olympic all-around title. It would not happen again until Simone Biles came along.

Podkopayeva did not last very long on the gymnastics scene. She was one of many casualties of Ukraine’s ill-fated run at the 1997 World Championships where they fielded only four gymnasts after a dire rash of injuries.

Viktoria Karpenko
Lilia was gone, but along came Viktoria Karpenko, a member of Ukraine’s 1995 World Championships team. Injuries prevented her from appearing at the 1996 Olympics and the 1997 Worlds. She made her mark in 1998, becoming one of the few foreign competitors to win the American Cup. In Japan she beat both Simona Amanar and Svetlana Khorkina at the 1997 Chunichi Cup, while also besting Elena Produnova and Andrea Raducan. Honored gymnastics coach Oleg Ostapenko called Karpenko the most talented gymnast he ever had in his program.

Karpenko won silver in the all-around at the 1999 Worlds and seemingly had another medal at the 2000 Olympics before a disastrous floor performance dropped her to 12th place. Her high-profile fall at the Olympics is one of the most devastating performances a gymnastics fan can watch – the ultimate Olympic heartbreak. The footage also marks something well beyond Karpenko herself – the death of Ukrainian gymnasts.

Yes, memorable gymnasts continued to carry the Ukrainian flag, some even managed to win gold medals. But the landscape had been altered, and Ukraine was no longer one of the sport’s leaders; it became a country that could only occasionally upset the medal race.
The fall of the Berlin Wall began the transition from a period when women’s artistic gymnastics was dominated by Communist countries to its current form. The sport is now ruled by either countries with large populations (Russia, China), or small wealthy countries (Belgium, Netherlands). Ukraine had neither, so the sport left them behind.

Ukraine lost its coaches to rival programs in the 1990s, often because the young, struggling independent nation lacked the funds to pay them. The gymnasts left behind carried on, but the country’s economy and population base did not. Ukraine’s gross domestic product would eventually shrink to half of Mexico’s, and its population shrank by 18 percent since Gutsu’s historic win in 1992. Replacing gymnastics equipment was almost impossible in a country struggling to fill its basic needs.

Karpenko was the last of her kind. Future Ukrainian gymnasts would never enjoy the same access to top-rate coaching, state of the art training facilities, or be products of Soviet talent scouts who delivered athletically gifted children to sporting officials. Even if Ukraine found another talented young gymnast, could she be properly trained?

Changes to the gymnastics format, like the elimination of compulsories, introduction of open-ended scoring or modifications to country limits, would not fix the problems.

Ukraine joined Bulgaria, Belarus and Romania in the graveyard of Eastern European women’s artistic gymnastics powers. These programs all suffered the same problem – the core issues that triggered their declines had nothing to do with the sport. It was instead an issue of demographic imbalance during a time when favorable demographics are now essential to success. The downfall of these historic programs was heartbreaking, but inevitable.

Upswing in the making
Today, unlike its Eastern European rivals, Ukraine is experiencing an upswing. The young Anastasia Bachynska and Diana Varinska have proven to be talented and popular. The Ukrainian program is again in the hands of Oleg Ostapenko, who returned to Ukraine in 2017. He is the venerable coach most associated with Ukraine’s past glory days.

There are reasons to be hopeful for Eastern European women’s artistic gymnastics. As these nations pivot toward the European Union, the economic decline that caused the fall of their gymnastics programs may also be reversed. In the past, Ukrainian coaches developed legendary gymnasts by utilizing the rich resources of the old Soviet arsenal.

Now, they have had over two decades to learn alternative training methods to make up for equipment they no longer have. Oleg Ostapenko’s return is a big plus.

Ukraine may be on the doorstep of a resurgence with Ostapenko guiding Bachynska and Varinska. Ukraine, along with other Eastern European nations, are slowly turning the corner, figuring out how to overcome their demographic disadvantage. These countries are still learning the lessons of how to transition from a communist model to a western one, all while coping with economic upheaval. As bleak as Ukraine’s situation may be, there springs eternal hope for a better tomorrow.

Ukraine was one of a few countries to attend the 2020 European Championships, along with their old Romanian rivals. They ignored the questions of competing in the middle of a pandemic and the legitimacy of medals won in a competition with so many high-profile withdrawals. For the first time in a long time, Ukraine entered a competition as an expected favorite. If only for a little bit, it seemed like the olden days. Perhaps it is an omen of the future.

Ukraine finished third out of eight competing nations at the 2020 European Championships with six medals: one gold, a silver and four bronze, behind Romania (14) and Hungary (8). They earned a gold in the team competition with Anastasia Bachynska, Yelyzaveta Hubareva, Anastasia Motak, Anhelina Radivilova and Diana Varinska comprising Ukraine’s team. Junior medalists were Daniela Batrona and Daria Lyska.
Ukraine tied for third place out of seven competing nations at the 2021 European Championships with one lone bronze medal, won by Anastasia Bachynska.

Ihor Stelmach may be reached at [email protected].

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