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YELENA DAVYDOVA
Yelena Victorovna Davydova (born August 7, 1961 in Voronezh, 400 miles south of Moscow), is a Russian (formerly, Soviet)
gymnast, winner of the Olympic all-around title in Gymnastics at the 1980 Summer Olympics.
Davydova became interested in gymnastics at age six after seeing on television the famous Soviet Olympic gold medallists
Larissa Petrik and Natalia Kuchinskaya. She attempted alone to be enrolled in Voronezh's
famous Spartak Gymnastics school, yet was turned away, as she was very small, and considered at the time to have the wrong physique for the
sport. Rather than giving up however, she secretly watched the lessons through windows and tried to imitate in the schoolyard what she had observed.
Soon a coach at the school, Gennady Korshunov, noticed her and invited into the school. He asked his wife, Irina, also a gymnastics
coach at the school, to train Davydova in her group. Yuri Shtukman, the administrator at the school, did not like this initiative by his
new training staff and reprimanded the Korshunovs; however he allowed Davydova to stay in the school. It soon became apparent that she was
a talented gymnast and Gennady took over her coaching himself. By 1972, Davydova was the best in her age group at the school.
In 1973, Yelena Davydova won her first International Tournament. In 1974 she became a member of the USSR junior squad. At the 1975 USSR
Junior Championships, Davydova finished 3rd AA and won golds on vault and bars. Following her success here she became a member of the senior
squad. In March 1976 Davydova achieved 2nd place All-Around at the USSR championships. She also won the gold on bars and a silver on floor.
At the inaugural American Cup, Davydova astonished the gymnastics world by performing a side somersault on the beam, the first woman to do
so. However, she only received 3rd place AA, due to her poor health in the match. The competition was won by
Nadia Comaneci, whose gymnastics Yelena Davydova greatly admired. At the USSR Cup Davydova
tied for 6th place AA and won bronze on vault, only 0.025 behind Olga Korbut, but only the top 5 and
one gymnast in 9th place were chosen for the Soviet Olympic team. Larissa Latynina, who had won
18 Olympic medals — a record for either gender in any sport — was the senior coach for the team, and was determined to uphold
the classical gymnastics tradition against the new athletic school of gymnastics as represented by Comaneci, Davydova and others.
In August, Davydova won the Antibes tournament in France by 0.6 points. In addition, she won gold on the vault, and silvers on the
events beam, bars, and floor. She finished 2nd AA in event finals at the Riga International with golds on beam, bars, and the vault,
with a bronze on floor. In October, she was made a member of the USSR gymnastics display team, which visited the UK. She subsequently
performed her beam routine on the Blue Peter show, an educational/entertainment show for children and teenagers and, was featured in
that year's Blue Peter annual.
In December of 1976, Davydova finished 3rd AA at the Chunichi Cup in Japan, and won a gold on vault and a bronze on floor at the
Tokyo Cup. She was the only woman in the competition to perform a front somersault vault. She also tied 1st AA with Kische and Kraker
of East Germany. Kische had finished 8th AA at the Montreal Olympics. Despite the presence of Olympians such as
Nadia Comaneci, Nellie Kim, and
Svetlana Grozdova in the Chunichi Cup, Davydova was described as the "most exciting performer
and certainly the most happy bubbly personality." One Japanese sports commentator wrote that "It was young Yelena Davydova
who deserved special attention for her super difficult exercises. She is a new infant prodigy for the Soviet Union, no less talented than
Kim, Turischeva, or Filatova." In 1977, Davydova again won the gold medal on bars at the USSR championships, scoring a full 10.
In September 1977, Yelena Davydova appeared on the front cover of a new magazine with an emphasis on young gymnasts, entitled
Gymnastics World. She was one of the four "Mighty Mites" featured in that issue.
She suffered a serious injury when a bone detached from her knee during training. Davydova was told that her injury could be repaired
by surgery, but she would never be a gymnast again. But Davydova persevered.
In 1978, Gennady Korshunov and his wife were invited to coach gymnastics in Leningrad, the birth city of Gennady. Yelena Davydova
and her family moved along with the Korshunov family. She achieved a silver AA at the Spartakiade of Russian Federation Sports Schools
meet, and bronze AA at the USSR Cup, being the top scorer on both beam and bars. Shortly after, Davydova won the AA title at the prestigious
Chunichi Cup in Japan defeating Maxi Gnauck. Her win by 0.55 points remains the joint 3rd highest
margin of victory in the competition's 34 year history. She also won gold on the bars and vault at the Tokyo Cup. As a result, she was
chosen to be a member of the USSR team at the World Championships at Strasbourg in France. However, on the day of competition she was
named as an alternate, and unable to compete.
At the 1979 Coca-Cola International in England, Davydova won a gold on floor and would have shared gold on bars, but her coach
blocked the line of vision of one of the judges, and she suffered the mandatory 0.3 deduction. She finished 2nd AA at the Simo Sappien
memorial tournament in Finland. Yelena Davydova was unable to attend the 1979 World Championships in Fort Worth, Texas, however, because of
a case of flu. At the World University Games in Mexico she won team gold, 3rd AA, and a silver medal on floor and bronze on vault in event finals.
In 1979, Olga Korbut named Davydova, Stella Zakharova, and
Natalia Shaposhnikova as the three most promising young gymnasts.
At the 1980 Moscow News Tournament, Davydova amazed the experts again by performing a full-on, full off vault. This vault had only ever
been done before by Olga Korbut. In the 1980 Code of Points, it was one of only a few vaults having a
10 start value. Davydova won a gold and three silvers at the Moscow News Tournament. At the 1980 USSR Championships Davydova won gold on vault
and 3rd AA.
The Soviet Olympic gymnastics team was to be chosen after the USSR Cup competition in June in Kiev. Davydova won it comfortably and
scored a 10 on floor. She finished 0.5 ahead of her nearest rival, Natalia Shaposhnikova.
Just before the Olympics, the Romanian Head Coach Béla Károlyi named Davydova as
Nadia Comaneci's main rival for the Olympic title. BBC radio reported on podium training at the
Olympics, discussing the established stars but added that on the basis of what they had seen they advised viewers to watch out for Yelena
Davydova, and that if she performed as well as in training, then she would take gold for her daring routines.
Missing from the 1980 Olympics was the 1978 World Champion, Elena Mukhina, who had been paralyzed
after an accident while training. She was unable to speak for six months and remained in a wheelchair until her death in December 2006.
Davydova kept in contact with her and Mukhina described her as "a real friend." Mukhina was not expected to be on the USSR team. In 1979 she
had broken her leg and it didn't set right. She was unable to master her old skills. In the spring of 1980 the Soviets split the senior
elites into two groups — those who were on the Olympic squad and those that weren't. Mukhina had not competed for the first six months of
1980 until she finished 14th AA at the USSR Cup.Mukhina was in the 2nd group training in Minsk when the accident happened.
In the team competition, for which scores counted towards both AA medals and event finals, Davydova was hampered by performing 4th
for her team before Kim and Shaposhnikova. Comaneci and Gnauck performed 6th for their respective teams. The scores tend to rise with each
routine (known as the "staircase effect"), giving the gymnasts performing last for their team a head start when it came to scoring.
Only three members out of six from any team could go through to the All-Around final, and only two to an event final. Davydova qualified for
two event finals — beam and vault — but it is believed she would have qualified for bars and floor event finals also had she
competed last for her team instead of 4th on the list.
Nadia Comaneci scored a 10 on beam in compulsories, her first perfect score on beam in a
major competition since 1977. Yelena Davydova performed very solidly, scoring 39.4, but finished the first day in 7th place behind three of
her own teammates and equal with another. The leaders were Comaneci and Shaposhnikova, both scoring 39.85. At this stage of the competition
in Montreal in 1976, Comaneci had scored 39.35.
In the optional exercises Davydova came into her own, outscoring all her teammates and meriting a 10 on floor. Barbara Slater,
who had been a British gymnast in Montreal and was a TV commentator in 1980, described Davydova's floor exercise as the "performance of
the Olympics." Nik Stuart, 9 times British AA champion and the first British national coach, stated that "Her floor exercise is the most
complex ever designed for a female gymnast, full of difficulty and fluidity." US gymnast Karen Le Mond stated that Davydova's floor exercise
had "harder tumbling passes than the best 10 has ever had." Another commentator wrote"No gymnast of either sex has ever attempted so
complicated or complex a routine." The FIG website praises her "delightful dance movements." Glenn Sundby, editor of
International Gymnast magazine, commented that "Davydova would have won anywhere on this earth with that floor routine."
This routine is also praised in Michael Murphy's 1992 book The Future of The Body. This was only the second time a perfect
score of 10 had been scored on floor at an Olympics. It was the first ever 10 scored in team optionals floor and the only 10 scored on floor
in either women's or men's gymnastics at the 1980 Olympics.
During this part of the competition, Nadia Comaneci fell from bars attempting a Hecht 1/2,
a move she had also fallen from at the 1979 World Cup. The judges gave her a 9.5, which meant she would have scored a 10 without the fall.
Comaneci scored 39.2.
Thursday, July 24, began the All-Around final. Davydova began in 5th place. In first place was Gnauck (East Germany), then Shaposhnikova (USSR),
3rd Eberle (Romania), 4th Comaneci (Romania). Davydova began on beam, Gnauck on bars, Comaneci on floor — a disadvantage for Davydova
because there is such a premium of accuracy in the beam exercise that the gymnast prefers to be fully attuned to the rigours of that days
competition before attempting it. There were only four routines left for each gymnast to compete. With two down and two to go, the places were now
Gnauck in first, Davydova in second, and Shaposhnikova and Comaneci tied for third. Nadia Comaneci then scored
a 10 on bars, the only gymnast to receive a perfect score that night. (It was her first perfect score on bars in a major competition since
the 1976 Olympics.) Maxi Gnauck held the lead until her last routine when she vaulted insecurely. She scored 9.7, on a vault with a start
value of 9.9, the same as she had scored for this vault at 1979 European Championships in Denmark and 1979 World Championships in the United States.
Yelena Davydova had scored 9.85 on beam, 9.95 on floor (Comaneci has described Davydova's routine as "excellent"), 9.9 on vault. She now had
her bar routine left to compete. Only a great exercise would be good enough. A mistake by Davydova would result in gold for either
Gnauck or Comaneci. Davydova's exercise included a Tkatchev which no other female gymnast could do at the time. A minute after she had left the
podium her score came up — 9.95. Davydova was in the lead and only Comaneci could overtake her.
Nadia Comaneci needed a score of 9.925 to tie or more than that to win the gold outright.
The last time she had scored as high as this in an AA final was at the 1976 Olympics. Out of the 100 optional beam exercises performed
at the 1980 Olympics only one scored as high as Comaneci needed. After one of her back flips, Comaneci had to flail her arms for balance.
She broke the connection between her aerial walkover to aerial cartwheel with a pause. Her knee bent slightly under 360 degree rotation.
She landed slightly askew, taking a step back, normally a 0.1 deduction.
The controversy began when no score was registered on the scoreboard. For half an hour gymnastics stole the screen from all the
other sports and even the adverts on Western TV stations were delayed. Deductions were taken in tenths by the judges, i.e., 0 if the
judge thought the exercise was perfect, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, etc. The marks were 10 from the Bulgarian judge, 9.9 from the Czech judge, 9.8 from
both the Soviet and Polish judges. With the top and bottom marks being discarded, and the remaining two being added together and then divided by 2,
this gave Nadia Comaneci a score of 9.85. This gave her a shared silver with Maxi Gnauck.
Natalia Shaposhnikova finished 4th but would have shared a silver medal with them had she
scored 0.05 more.
Head Judge on beam, Maria Simionescu of Romania, refused to enter the score as it meant that Comaneci would not win gold.
Madame Simionescu had been the Romanian women's gymnastics team coach at the 1956, 1960, and 1964 Olympics. She had helped found the
gymnastics school where Comaneci trained. Simionescu had been a friend of her since Comaneci's childhood and had given her ballet training.
She had travelled with the Romanian team numerous times and socialized with them. She would intervene again in beam event final to restrict
the score of Shaposhnikova which would give Comaneci beam gold. Nadia Comaneci repeated her score of
9.85 here. Although the Romanian Head Judge delayed the score of her fellow Romanian, holding up the AA competition for 28 minutes,
it was eventually registered. The other Soviet gymnasts, aided by an East German and a Swedish gymnast, tossed Davydova in the air in celebration.
At the 59th FIG General Assembly, there was criticism of some of the judges at the 1980 Olympics. But the only Head Judge criticised —
in either the men's or women's competition — was Simionescu. The report which included this criticism was accepted unanimously by the
48 Federation delegates present. In 1984, before the Los Angeles Olympics, the United States Gymnastics Federation proposed that "when the
average score of a gymnast is 9.8 or above, the Head judge should not be permitted to have discussion with any of the other judges concerning
the final score."
Comaneci had outscored Davydova by 0.45 in compulsories but Davydova outscored her in all other stages of the competition where they met.
Davydova outscored her by 0.4 in optionals, 0.1 in the AA finals, and 0.3 in event finals.
Davydova won AA gold exactly two weeks before her 19th birthday — older than nearly all recent Olympic gymnastic AA champions.
While there was some criticism of Davydova's victory in the general press, this was mainly by reporters who did not know how
gymnastics was scored. Within the gymnastics community itself there was little doubt about the validity of Davydova's win.
Nadia Comaneci herself acknowledged "That day, Yelena just performed better."
On July 3, 1981, in Montreux, the 100th anniversary celebration of the International Gymnastics Federation took place. Davydova was
invited to perform her famous floor exercise which she did twice and won a standing ovation from the people present. In August, Yelena won
the tournament in Giresum,Turkey. She won the AA title and was top scorer on vault, bars, floor and joint top scorer on beam.
She scored 10s on bars and floor. She won the AA title 0.35 ahead of Shaposhnikova, 0.8 ahead of
Natalia Yurchenko, and 1.0 ahead of the 1980 World Cup winner Zakharova.
At the 1981 USSR Championships — the number one national championships in the world at that time — Davydova won
the All-Around title plus golds on floor and vault and bronze on bars.
Davydova also participated in the 1981 World Championships, her last major international event. She finished third in the all-around
final after an improper landing in the balance beam event. Had she not sat down on her beam dismount she would have won gold. Davydova
suffered a serious neck injury in pre-competition warm-up but still finished third in AA and was the only gymnast from any nation to
make all four event finals. She won silver on floor and bronze on bars. She would have won gold on vault but was unable to stand the
incredibly difficult vault of her own invention, full twist on front tuck off. Jackie Fie, the US Head Judge on vault at the 1981 World Championships,
wrote that if the other vaults were to be marked out of 10, then Davydova's one should be scored out of 10.5. Davydova is the only one
who has done a vault that a male gymnast has not. She remains the only IOC Olympic champion, since 1980, to have competed in a World
Championships after she had won the Olympic AA title.
In October 1981, International Gymnast magazine chose Davydova as the model for their new IG pin, T-shirt, and circulation advertisement.
The British Gymnast magazine's readers voted Davydova "gymnast of the year" in 1980 and 1981. At the British national championships
for girls in 1982, Davydova was voted the favorite gymnast amongst the gymnasts taking part and was voted second favorite in 1983.
Davydova remained on the Soviet display team until 1984 but retired from competitive gymnastics in late 1982.
For more information, visit her
profile page on the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique website.
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