Yanina Batyrchina

Yanina Batyrshina
— Gymnast —
Nickname(s)	Yana
Country represented	Russia
Born	(1979-10-07) October 7, 1979 Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, Soviet Union
Hometown	Moscow
Height	165 centimetres (5 ft 5 in)
Weight	46 kilograms (101 lb)
Discipline	Rhythmic gymnastics
Club	Gymnastics Center Nowogors
Head coach(es)	Irina Viner
Retired	1998
Medal record Competitor for  Russia Rhythmic Gymnastics Olympic Games Silver 1996 Atlanta All-Around World Championships Gold 1997 Berlin Rope Gold 1997 Berlin Team Gold 1995 Vienna Ball Gold 1995 Vienna Team Silver 1997 Berlin Clubs Silver 1996 Budapest Ribbon Bronze 1997 Berlin All-around Bronze 1995 Vienna All-around European Championships Gold 1998 Porto Rope Gold 1997 Patras Ribbon Gold 1995 Telford Ribbon Gold 1993 Bucharest Rope(Junior) Gold 1993 Bucharest Clubs(Junior) Silver 1998 Porto Hoop Silver 1998 Porto Ribbon Silver 1997 Patras Rope Silver 1997 Patras Clubs Silver 1996 Asker All-around Silver 1996 Asker Ball Silver 1995 Telford All-around Silver 1995 Telford Clubs Silver 1993 Bucharest All-around(Junior) Silver 1993 Bucharest Ball(Junior) Silver 1993 Bucharest Ribbon(Junior) Bronze 1998 Porto All-around Bronze 1998 Porto Team Bronze 1995 Telford Rope Bronze 1995 Telford Ball Grand Prix Final Gold 1996 Vienna All-around

Yana (Yanina) Batyrshina (Russian: Яна (Янина) Фархадовна Батыршина, born October 7, 1979) is a former individual rhythmic gymnast who competed for Russia. She is the 1996 Olympics All-around silver medalist, two time (1995,1997) World All-around bronze medalist, the 1996 European All-around silver medalist and 1996 Grand Prix Final All-around champion.

Personal life

Yana Batyrshina is of Jewish and Tatar descent.^[1] She studied physical education at the Kharkov Institute.

Career

Batyrshina started training at five years old when a rhythmic gymnast coach approached her father and told the family she was ideal gymnastics material. At 9 years of age, Batyrchina moved to Russia with Irina Viner who became the Russian National Team Head coach.

Batyrchina burst onto the International scene in 1993, when she finished 2nd all-around at the European Junior Championships, she also won gold in the individual apparatus finals with rope and clubs, and silver with ball and ribbon.

In 1995, Batyrshina made her senior international breakthrough in Grand Prix events, collecting a total of 15 medals. At the 1995 World Championships she won the bronze medal in All-around and also took home golds for the team competition and ball. Her results fluctuated in 1996, but she still managed ton take the silver medal for the all-around and ball at the 1996 European Championships. After the event final of 1996 World Championships, she won the silver medal in ribbon.

Batyrshina competed at the 1996 Summer Olympics, but she had a rough start at the preliminaries. She wept bitterly after several errant catches left her sitting in 13th place in preliminaries but since the top 20 advanced to semifinals, she redeemed her poor preliminary results and set her up perfectly for finals. But during her last event exercise, ribbon, she lost focus in the midst of a simple hand-to-hand exchange and dropped the apparatus. Batyrshina was scored 9.683, putting her into second place overall ahead of Ukrainian Olena Vitrichenko.

Batyrchina polished off her 1996 season with a win in All-around at the 1996 Grand Prix Final (tied with Yekaterina Serebrianskaya), a huge coup considering the depth of the field. She parlayed her success into a medal-winning 1997, including several Grand Prix golds. Despite her success and desire to continuing competing through the 2000 Olympics, 1998 presented a new challenge for Batyrshina in the form of up and coming new Russian teammate Alina Kabayeva. Kabayeva would go on to win the 1998 European Championships, while Batyrshina would struggle with ribbon and finish third in All-around. Batyrshina picked up three more medals in apparatus finals with a gold in rope, silver with hoop, and bronze with ribbon but, according to coach Viner, Batyrshina was beginning to feel that there was not enough room for both her and Kabayeva at the top.^{[citation needed]} Batyrshina quietly retired a short time after Europeans at 19 years of age.

After her retirement, Batyrshina began coaching. In 1999, she was briefly invited to serve as a trainer at the UNOPAR gym in Londrina, Brazil, helping prepare the Brazilian group for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Influence

Yanina Batyrshina is arguably one of the most popular rhythmic gymnast of her decade. Her winning style has altered the direction of rhythmic gymnastics in Russia as well as the rest of the world.^{[citation needed]} Well known for her undeniable flexibility and personality, Batyrchina was also hailed for a top-notch level of difficulty and high, oversplit leaps and jumps. She included many flexibility skills in her routines, the majority of which highlighted her spectacularly elastic back.^[2]

Detailed Olympic results

See also

• List of select Jewish gymnasts

References

• Catalano, Robin. Gymnastics Greats, Yanina Batyrshina (RUS).

External links

• Yana Batyrshina at Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
• Official website (Russian)