At 33, and a mother, she wins silver in *gymnastics*, and her story runs deeper still...

[acroyear]

2008 Beijing Summer Olympics | Oksana Chusovitina, Interview Questions | NBC Olympics. A fascinating interview with the 33 year old Women's vault silver medalist, a former Soviet now competing for Germany (and she explains why...).

Comments

[cozit.livejournal.com]

The first day of the trials for women's gymnastics, NBC ran a story on her when she was up for one of the events. She's one of the few other than US, China, and a couple of the Russians and Romanians who were shown that night. Shows her son playing at the gym, too (IIRC just playing, not tumbling, but I could be wrong).

The girl and I were talking about how nice the Chinese and American teams were being to each other... and I mentioned that it *used* to be that you'd *never* see one team talking to another at the Olympics, but at this one compliments and support were offered to other teams a number of times.

One of the neatest things about her (and her son's) story is just how much others in the gymnastics world have supported them. And how much she and others have kept in touch with each other through the years (it's interesting that they mention "Nastia's gym" donating money, neglecting to mention in that comment that her father apparently gave them a fairly large amount of money to help out, fairly quickly... showing that the connections are still there and strong so many years after they worked together). Sometimes the world growing smaller is a good thing indeed.

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, heard about the story tonight. That's a good one. Funny thing is, I think I remember her from that Barcelona picture.

At the same time, I feel sorry for Alicia Sacramone, who had nothing go right with her Olympics.

[xpioti.livejournal.com]

How terrific, I was hoping she would medal! I saw the vignette about her on NBC, I guess it was, and it was so bizarre/fascinating to see her with all of the other gymnasts, all of whom were perhaps half her age.

[cozit.livejournal.com]

My daughter's gym hosted the state's level 7 women's meet this year (current ranking goes from 1-10 (her gym starts at level 4, under that is more training level than competition... oh, and that's US only, even Canada's a little different) and then Elite, from which the US team is chosen).

Competing in that meet was one woman I could have *sworn* had a wrong date in the birthdate when I checked her in... it said 1969.. the year my sister (who could have gone Elite in HS, but didn't) was born. From what I heard, she had a pretty darned good meet, too. For her to be at that level *now*, after just re-starting a few years ago (or so I heard, anyway), she had to have been darned good when she competed the first time around!

I had a hard time getting my mind around *that*... the idea that someone rapidly approaching the same age being of Olympic caliber... well, my brain's still stuttering :-) I'm seriously impressed.

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

I saw her story on NBC and she was amazing!! Gives me hope that I'll one day win the world highland dance championships. Well, maybe not but it makes me feel a little less washed up at 36. :)

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

I hope that they give the Swimmer (Torres) some good mention. 42 with a kid and earned 3 silvers. She is the most decorated women's swimmer for the US I think. AND she is a true sportsman. Telling the judges and the other swimmers about one of her competitors having to go change suits (tear at the wrong time) in one of the prelims. I think that may be the girl who got the gold in the finals.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

most decorated overall (having so many national and world championships over time), though phelps and spitzer are more decorated in olympic medals.

but yeah, NBC, especially the today show, has given her plenty of air time and attention including another interview this morning.

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

"Women's Swimmer" I don't think Phelps qualifies for that category.

/snerk

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

see icon.