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DANIELA SILIVAS
Viorca Daniela Silivas-Harper (born May 9, 1972), best known as Daniela Silivas, is
a Romanian gymnast who is most famous for winning six medals (three gold, two silver, and one bronze) in women's
artistic gymnastics at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea.
Daniela Silivas was born in Deva, Transylvania, on May 9, 1972. She began gymnastics at age 6 and was coached by the
legendary Béla Károlyi for six months before his defection in 1981. Silivas won her school's championships
in 1980, and in 1981 and 1982, was the Romanian Junior National Champion. She continued to compete in various junior
meets through 1984, enjoying a particularly strong showing at the 1984 Junior European Championships, where she won
the balance beam title, earned silver medals on the uneven bars and floor exercise, and placed 4th in the all-around.
The 1984 Junior Friendship Tournament (Druzhba) was another especially successful meet for Silivas. She won gold medals in
the all-around and uneven bars over a strong field that included future Olympic and World champions
Svetlana Boguinskaya,
Aurelia Dobre and Dagmar Kersten, among others.
However, Silivas did not linger for long in the junior ranks. In 1985, the Romanian Gymnastics Federation changed her
birth year from 1972 to 1970 to make her age eligible for the World Championships in Montreal. The falsification was suspected
by some, but was never fully verified until Silivas herself revealed it in 2002. She stated that she was never consulted
about the matter; officials simply gave her a new passport, called her attention to the birthdate, and informed her that
she was now fifteen.
Although she was only thirteen at the 1985 Worlds, Silivas, scored a perfect 10 en route to capturing the World balance
beam title, defeating the reigning Olympic Champion, her fellow countrywoman, Ecaterina Szabo,
in the process. She finished behind reigning co-World Champion Elena Shushunova in
the individual all-around at the 1986 World Cup and quickly established herself as the leader of the Romanian gymnastics team.
Silivas's greatest triumph took place at the 1987 European Gymnastics Championships in Moscow, where she won the
individual all-around, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise titles in addition to taking a silver medal on the vault.
At the time, every single dominant nation in women's gymnastics was located in Europe. Winning the European title over the
deep field of powerful Soviet, East German and Bulgarian gymnasts marked a major victory.
At the 1987 World Championships in Rotterdam, Silivas helped the Romanian squad win the team title, defeating the
nearly invincible world champion Soviet team for the first time since 1979. She was a favorite for the all-around title,
but, hampered by low scores carried over from the team optionals, where she had stepped off the balance beam, as well as
a shaky uneven bars routine in the all-around, she only managed to win the bronze medal behind teammate
Aurelia Dobre and 1985 World Champion Shushunova. In the event finals, Silivas
did win two gold medals, on the uneven bars and the floor.
At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Silivas, along with Dobre and Shushunova, was considered a heavy favorite for the
all-around title. In the team competition, Romania finished second to the Soviet squad.
The stage was set for the all-around, with a hotly anticipated battle between Silivas, the technician and dancer; and
Shushunova, the powerhouse and tumbler. Both gymnasts turned in especially strong performances. Both Silivas and Shushunova
received perfect 10.0 scores on floor; Shushunova received her second 10.0 on vault and Silivas received hers on the uneven bars.
Silivas was in the lead entering the final rotation, but a score of 9.950 on the vault dropped her to second place behind
Shushunova by only 0.025.
The all-around duel between Silivas and Shushunova is widely acknowledged to have been one of the finest contests in
the history of the sport, not to mention most hotly debated. In particular, Silivas' score on vault came under scrutiny.
Of the six judges on the panel, three marked her first vault as a perfect 10.0. Two others gave her 9.9s. The Soviet judge
on the panel Nellie Kim, however, only scored Silivas, at a 9.8. On her second vault
attempt, Silivas took a hop on her landing; all six judges gave her 9.9s. Silivas was visibly upset after Shushunova's
scores were posted and at the medal ceremony. According to a report in International Gymnast, her comment on the
competition was "after my last vault, I thought maybe I should be the champion." However, she did not argue the results
publicly. Her former coach, Béla Károlyi, noted, "This kid had the honesty and decency to shut up. She didn't
want to say 'I'm better' because she knows Shushunova is the Olympic champion but she couldn't praise a rival. So she
just didn't say a word. These kids have more decency than all the judges and coaches in the world."
In spite of the controversy, no score protests were ever filed by Silivas, her coaches or her Federation, and no
disciplinary measures were taken against any of the judges. In addition, even though Kim's first mark was considered
questionable by many fans, it did not actually figure into Silivas' final score; in 1988, the highest and lowest marks
of the panel were dropped and the final score was the average of the remaining four marks. Also, in spite of her vault
score, Silivas' cumulative overall all-around total was actually higher than that of Shushunova. If the competition had been
held under the New Life rule, she would have won.
Silivas returned in the event finals to win gold medals on the uneven bars, floor and beam, as well as bronze in the
vault behind Soviet Svetlana Boguinskaya (gold) and teammate Gabriela
Potorac (silver). In the process, she became the only gymnast in Seoul to win medals on every single event in all three
competitions (team, all-around and event finals). She also equaled Nadia Comaneci's
record of seven perfect 10.0 scores in a single Olympic competition.
Despite being plagued with a serious knee injury in 1989, Silivas was able to successfully defend her floor exercise
title at the European Championships and won three additional medals. In the all-around, she placed second to
Svetlana Boguinskaya. Still injured, she went to the Worlds in Stuttgart where she placed 12th
in the all-around after falling from the balance beam. Undaunted, she returned in event finals to capture three more
gold medals on the bars, beam and floor.
After several more competitions in 1989, Silivas, underwent surgery on her knee and intended to return to the gym to train.
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 closed the National Training Center at Deva, putting an early end to her career.
Silivas formally retired from gymnastics in 1991 and moved to the United States, settling in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2002,
Silivas was inducted into the International
Gymnastics Hall of Fame. She still holds the record as the youngest gymnast ever to receive this honor.
Silivas still resides in Georgia and works full-time as a gymnastics coach in Atlanta. In May 2003, she married Scott
Harper, a sports management graduate living in the Atlanta area. The couple have two children: a son, Jadan Scott,
born April 8, 2004; and a daughter, Ava, born in late 2005.
For more information, visit her
profile page on the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique website.
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