07/25/2021 8:03 AM
Clarín.com
sports
Updated 07/25/2021 8:03 AM
Judges, rivals, coaches, volunteers and journalists, the only audience present at the Ariake gym in Tokyo, said goodbye to Uzbek
Oksana Chusovitina
, who this Sunday competed in her eighth Olympic Games at the age of 46
, standing up and with applause
.
The gymnast, who began her Olympic journey in Barcelona 1992 as a member of the Unified Team, participated only in her great specialty, jumping.
After verifying that the note of his two attempts (14,166) would not give him to enter the final, Chusovitina smiled and raised his arms to say goodbye to the stands.
Then he
drew a heart with his hands
.
The end of a legendary career had come.
The last jump of Oksana Chusovitina.
Photo: AP
The judges rose from their seats to cheer her on and were immediately joined by the entire pavilion.
Many of the gymnasts surrounded Chusovitina to be photographed with her and to show her affection.
And, above all, respect.
The Uzbek, a reference in the history of the sport, began to cry and went back up the jump hall to say hello
.
Chusovitina competed with a large number 8 on its mesh.
She achieved 14,500 and 13,833 points in her two jumps, insufficient to be one of the eight finalists (at the end she was already tenth, with more gymnasts to compete) but still better than many of her rivals, all younger.
In the middle of the race.
Oksana Chusovitina retired at 46.
Fifteen months ago, when the Tokyo Olympics were postponed for a year due to the pandemic, he said: "I was thinking of ending my career at the Tokyo Games and now I'm not going to change my plans.
Another season in the gym
."
Chusovitina turned 46 years old on June 19 and in addition to being the oldest Olympic gymnast, she has another record in her possession:
that of having competed under four flags.
Born in 1975 in Bukhara, she represented the Soviet Union until its disappearance.
In the Barcelona Games he participated with the Unified Team and won the team gold medal.
As an Uzbek she competed in Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, as a German in Beijing 2008 and London 2012 and did so in Rio 2016 again as an Uzbek.
Oksana Chusovitina's nails.
Photo: Reuters
In addition to the breakdown of the Soviet Union, family reasons led to so many changes of nationality.
In 1999 she was the mother of a son, Alisher, who in 2002 was diagnosed with leukemia.
Chusovitina and her husband, the wrestler Bajodir Kurbanov (Olympian in 1996 and 2000), settled in Cologne, Germany, for the boy to receive treatment.
She had quit gymnastics after giving birth, but became a German national and returned to competition to earn the money she needed to pay for medical expenses.
Before the London Games he announced that they would be the last.
Later he regretted it and wanted to re-represent his home country before saying goodbye.
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) granted her a new change of nationality in 2013 to compete in Rio.
He was not satisfied with participating: he qualified for the jumping final
, in which he rubbed shoulders with gymnasts twenty years younger, among them the American Simone Biles.
That time he had no doubts and already announced that he would continue until Tokyo 2020.
In recent seasons, she was trained by her former partner Svetlana Boguinskaya, with whom she shared the gold of Barcelona'92 and four years earlier, in Seoul'88, she won four medals with the Soviet Union.
The Spanish gymnast Marina González, with whom she shared a subdivision this day in Tokyo, highlighted the power of Chusovitina to
"break stereotypes"
.
"Show that you can be tall, short, young, old and be a good gymnast," she said.
"I have known her since I compete internationally," added Roxana Popa, also from Spain.
"We'll see if he doesn't regret it and goes to the Paris Games," he
added.
Source: EFE
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