How Olga Korbut Inspired a Generation of Gymnasts | The Olympics On The Record

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Gymnastics now, and, first up, Tourischeva of the Soviet Union. Ludmilla Tourischeva led the Soviet Union to the team event gold medal at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. She would then go on to win gold in the prestigious overall individual discipline. At 20 years old, Tourischeva held world, Olympic and European titles all at the same time, and she ended her career with nine Olympic medals, including four of the most precious metal. She was a serene performer, consistently brilliant and a popular team leader of the Soviet gymnastics team. So why was the 1972 gymnastics competition best remembered not for the performance of Tourischeva, but for the emergence of her 17-year-old team-mate, the girl who finished seventh? Nicknamed the Sparrow, the little Olga Korbut was a promising star of Soviet gymnastics. She caught the eye from her very first appearance in Munich. She had been training relentlessly from the age of 12 back home in Minsk, in modern-day Belarus. Alongside Tourischeva, Korbut helped the Soviet Union win gold in the team event. By the start of the individual all-round competition, all eyes were on Korbut. There was no social media in those days, but it would be true to say that Korbut phenomenon went viral. Imagine a world without social media! People actually talking to each other. Nelly. Nelly! Watching on colour TV for the first time, people around the world stopped what they were doing to watch this tiny girl from Minsk. After the vault and floor exercises, Korbut was in third place. She was in serious contention to win a medal. Next up, the uneven bars. Two parallel bars set at different heights with gymnasts soaring and swinging from bar to bar. It requires control. The judges looking for difficulty, technique and composition. Deductions are made for errors, pauses and steps on dismount. Up until then, the uneven bars had been Korbut's strongest discipline, but not that day in Munich. From the beginning, her routine went badly wrong. Korbut was heavily marked down, a score of 7.5 effectively ended her medal chances. The tears were seen as a very public display of emotion and it helped make her a household name. Tears. Yep. That will work. Make sure you click like and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Tourischeva won the overall gold medal she deserved. It was said of her she could perform on a battlefield. It was Korbut however who won people's hearts, and she had the support of millions when it came to the individual events. On the balance beam, she pulled off a stunt no-one had ever seen before in international competition. It was a sensational performance and it won her gold in that discipline. Korbut followed it up with an extraordinary display on the floor. A second gold. On the uneven bars, she made mistakes in the qualification round, but made it through to the finals, and it was now that she pulled off her boldest manoeuvre yet. No gymnast had ever scored a perfect ten before, but surely this sensational performance had earned it. The judges thought not and awarded Korbut 9.8. Spectators thought there had been a huge mistake. The judges stuck to their decision. It was still enough to give Korbut a silver medal. The audacious backwards somersault became known as the Korbut Flip. But in 2009, the move was banned. You will never see this done at the Olympic Games. It was just too dangerous. Thankfully, the Flip was not Korbut's only legacy. She quickly became a role model for young gymnasts. In Britain alone, some 2.5 million took up the sport, a pattern repeated all over the world. The Korbut phenomenon demonstrated the power of the Olympic Games, or, in this case, a young girl from Minsk to grab the attention of the globe.

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Channel: Olympics

Views: 2,089,388

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Keywords: Olympic Games, Olympics, IOC, Sport, Champion, Gymnastics, Legends, Legend, Olga Korbut, USSR, Munich 1972, 1972 Summer Olympics, 1972 Olympic Games, 1972 Olympics, Gymnasts, Korbut, Sparrow, Artistic gymnastics, الجمباز الفني, 竞技体操, Gymnastique, artistique, Turnsport, Kunstturnen, Ginnastica, Artistica, 体操競技, 체조, Спортивная, гимнастика, Gimnasia artística, Artistic, Olympics On the Record, on the record, record, record breaking, Olympic, bronze, silver, gold, yt:cc=on, PLOOTR

Id: H0cZqvwxerI

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Length: 5min 8sec (308 seconds)

Published: Sun May 27 2018