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]

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.