Olga Mostepanova

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Olga Vasilyevna Mostepanova (Russian: Ольга Васильевна Мостепанова) (born January 3, Moscow, Russia) is a retired prominent Soviet gymnast. Her birth year has been variously reported as 1968 or 1969, but Mostepanova herself has stated that she was actually born in 1970.

Mostepanova placed seventh in the all-around at the 1979 Junior USSR championships, her first national competition. Over the next few years she would become a leader of the Soviet team, competing in various junior international events, including the 1980 Champions All meet and the 1982 Junior European Championships, where she won the balance beam title, placed second on the vault and third in the all-around.

Praised for her classic balletic style, difficulty and strong technique, Mostepanova had a strong senior debut, winning two gold medals (team, balance beam) and two silvers (all-around, floor exercise) at the 1983 World Championships.

Mostepanova was considered an excellent medal prospect for the 1984 Olympics, however, due to the Eastern Bloc boycott, she did not compete in the Games. Instead, she led the Soviet team at the Friendship Games (also known as Olomouc, after the city in which the gymnastics competition was held; or the Alternate Games), the "alternative Olympics" for countries that had participated in the boycott.

Olomouc was an exceptional competition for Mostepanova. In the all-around, she became the first and only gymnast in history to earn 10.0 scores on all four events in a major international competition, finishing the session with a perfect mark of 40.0. She nearly achieved this feat in both the qualifying round and the team finals as well, earning 10.0s on three of her four events. In total, Mostepanova earned a total of twelve 10s in Olomouc and left with five of the six possible gold medals: team, all-around, vault, balance beam and floor exercise.

After the Friendship Games, Mostepanova continued to compete, sharing in the team gold medal at the 1985 World Championships. She qualified for the all-around, however, she and teammate Irina Baraksanova were pulled from the competition by the team coaches and replaced by Oksana Omelianchik and Elena Shushunova. This would be her last major meet for the USSR.

Mostepanova is now married and the mother of five children. In a recent poll in Inside Gymnastics magazine, she was voted one of the "Top 10 All-Around Gymnasts of All Time."

[edit] Achievements

Year	Event	AA	Team	VT	UB	BB	FX
1982	USSR Championships	3rd		3rd	2nd	3rd	2nd
	USSR Cup	3rd			3rd	2nd
1983	World Championships	2nd	1st			1st	2nd
	USSR Championships				2nd
	USSR Cup	2nd			1st	1st
1984	Friendship Games	1st	1st	1st		1st	1st
	USSR Championships	2nd		1st	3rd	1st
	USSR Cup	1st
1985	World Championships		1st

[edit] Sources

• List of competitive credits
• Whatever happened to Olga Mostepanova?
• Interview with Olga Mostepanova. Yevgeniy Aksyonov/trans. Beth Squires, Sovetskiy Sport, March 7, 1998

[edit] External links

• Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique profile for Olga Mostepanova