Yelena Davydova

Infobox Gymnast
gymnastname= Yelena Davydova


imagesize=200px
caption=
fullname=
altname=
nickname=
country=URS
formercountry=
birthdate= birth date and age|1961|08|07
birthplace=
hometown=
residence=
deathdate=
deathplace=
height=
discipline=WAG
level=
natlteam=
club=
gym=
collegeteam=
headcoach=
assistcoach=
formercoach=
choreographer=
music=
eponymousskills=
retired=
medaltemplates=

Yelena Victorovna Davydova ( _ru. Еле́на Ви́кторовна Давы́дова, born August 7, 1961 in Voronezh, 400 miles south of Moscow), is a Russian (formerly, Soviet) gymnast. She is the 1980 Olympic All-Around Champion.

Childhood training

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.

Young competition life

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 Semyonovna 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 '76, 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 Comaneci, Ungureanu, Kim, and 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 the prediction 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 birthcity 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, U.S., 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.

Full-fledged Olympian

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 3 silver 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 paralysed after an accident while training. She was unable to speak for 6 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 2 groups - those who were on the Olympic squad and those that weren't.Mukhina had not competed for the first 6 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 — whose 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 3 members out of 6 from any team could go through to the All-Around final and only 2 to an event final. Davydova qualified for two event finals — beam and vault — but it is believed 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 3 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 76 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 FX 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 2nd time a perfect score of 10 had been scored on fx at an Olympics; it was the 1st ever 10 scored in team optionals fx and the only 10 scored on fx – 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 means she would have scored a 10 without the fall. Comaneci scored 39.2.

All-Around Olympic Champion

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 4 routines left for each gymnast to compete. With 2 down and 2 to go the places were now: Gnauck 1st, Davydova 2nd, Shaposhnikova and Comaneci joint 3rd. 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). Neil Admur, New York Times, July 25, 1980, A17, "The drama on the final rotation added to the suspense. Miss Gnauck was second among the 9 gymnasts on the vault, Miss Davydova seventh on the bars and Miss Comaneci eight on the beam". 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 79 World Championships in 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 bars exercise left to compete. Only a great exercise would be good enough. But bars had a casualty list of high profile gymnasts - Nadia Comaneci and Dumitreatu Turner had fallen during the team competition, Věra Čáslavská fell at 64 Olympics event final, Natalia Kuchinskaya at 67 Europeans, Kuchinskaya fell at 68 Olympics, Korbut lost her chance of being Olympic AA champion in 72, losing the gold medal and finishing 7th,Tourischeva in 75 Europeans,Kim and Korbut 76 Olympics event final, Elena Naimushina and Nadia 79 Europeans, Comaneci at 79 World Cup, Shaposhnikova, Zakharova and Filatova 79 Worlds,Filatova's fall costing her the silver AA medal. 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), long swing 1.5 pirouette, Giant. Anton Gadjos, in his 1997 book,"Artistic Gymnastics: A history of development" highlights Davydova's Tkatchev from the 80 Olympics. The FIG website describes this exercise as "Fantastic". 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 76 Olympics. Out of the 100 optional beam exercises performed at the 1980 Olympics only 1 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 2 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 extra.

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, 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 socialised 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 delegate present.In 1984,before the LA Olympics,the United States Gymnastics Federation proposed “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 AA final, 0.3 in event finals.

Davydova appeared on the front cover of the European edition of Newsweek magazine, issue August 4 1980. She was voted 14th best female athlete in the world that year. In the Soviet Union, a flower was named after the 2 Yelenas — Davydova and Naimushina.Under the present Olympic AA scoring system — "New Life" — Davydova would have won the 1980 AA title by a larger margin and would have won gold on beam. In addition to the AA gold, Davydova won a gold medal with the team and a silver medal on balance beam. While recognised as the best vaulter in event finals Davydova failed to stand her second vault and thus failed to medal. This vault is described below in the paragraph on the 1981 World Championships.

Davydova won AA gold exactly 2 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 acknowledges "That day, Yelena just performed better"; [cite book | author = Comăneci, Nadia | title = Letters to a young gymnast | location= New York | publisher=Basic Books | year = 2003 | id = ISBN 0-465-01276-0 ] John Goodbody wrote that Davydova was successful because of her "consistency and her willingness to take risks"- over 3 days of competition her lowest score was a 9.8; [cite book | author = Goodbody, John | title = The illustrated history of gymnastics | location= London | publisher=Stanley Paul & Co | pages = 78-92|year = 1982|id = ISBN 0-09-143350-9 ] Glenn Sundby, then editor of the International Gymnast (IG) magazine, and founder member of the "United States Gymnastics Federation" and the "International Gymnastics Hall OF Fame" and the first "Gymnastics World Cup"; Zacharias Nikolaidis, editor of the Greek Gymnastics magazine "Dynamiko"; Ursel Baer, a British judge at the 80 Olympics,"Davydova richly deserved to be Olympic champion"; Elisa Estape, a Spanish coach who had all the routines filmed and evaluated praised Davydova's routines in the highest terms and said she should have won by more; Paul Williams, another British judge there,"Davydova fully deserved her gold medal, with a brilliant display of high quality work"; Maxi Gnauck's coach Juergen Heritz; Lyn Moran, assistant editor of IG and author of the book "The young Gymnasts"; Jeff Cheales, an Australian judge; Tom Ecker, author of "Olympic Facts and Fables"; Peter Shilston, columnist, British Gymnast magazine; John Rodda in his book "The Olympic Games".

Post-Olympic sports achievements

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 Elena 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 10's 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 3rd AA and was the only gymnast from any nation to make all 4 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 81 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 (IG) chose Davydova as the model for their new IG pin, T-shirt and circulation add. The British Gymnast magazine's readers voted Davydova gymnast of the year in 80 and 81. At the British national championships for girls in 1982 Davydova was voted the favourite gymnast amongst the gymnasts taking part and was voted second favourite in 1983.

Davydova remained on the Soviet display team until 1984 but retired from competitive gymnastics in late 1982.

Life after retirement from sports

Yelena Davydova attended the "Leningrad University of Physical education" and later received her doctorate in Pedagogical science at the "P.F.Lesgraft State Institute of Athletic Education". The title of her thesis was "Nontraditional preparation of top gymnasts for competitions" and with it she was assisted by world famous professors of medicine Kima Ivanova and Leonid Korolev. Upon graduation, in 1987, Davydova began coaching and served as an international Brevet judge. She began her coaching career with the Leningrad Olympic reserve college and was a coach with the Soviet national gymnastics team.

Davydova married boxing coach Pavel Filatov on June 1 1983.They have two sons, Dmitrii (born February 21 1985) and Anton (June 28 1995).The family moved to Canada in 1991.One of the main reasons was because Dmitrii had a condition that his parents weren’t sure they could get the proper medication for in Russia. Davydova now works there as Head Coach with Gemini Gymnastics, a non-profit parent run club, in Oshawa, Ontario. Some of her better known gymnasts include Stephanie Capucitti, Sarah Deegan, Danielle Hicks, Katherine Fairhurst, Kristina Vaculik, Brittnee Habbib, Kelsey Hope. She was beam coach for the Canadian women's team at the 1995 World Championships and one of the Canadian women's team coaches at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Davydova was twice named Gymnastics Canada Gymnastique coach of the year.In October 2005 Elena was chosen for the Coaching Association of Canada's Women in Coaching National Team Coaching Apprenticeship Program.In 2005 Elena achieved the highest score on the Canadian Brevet judging course.In June 2006 she received the FIG Coaching Brevet.As of 2007 She is 1 of only 31 female coaches worldwide to hold this Brevet and the only Olympic AA champion.

Her parents are now retired. Her father Victor was a mechanic and her mother Tamara was employed at the "Leningrad Optical and Mechanical Works". Her brother Yuri, who is 12 years younger than Davydova, still lives in Russia as well.Elena was part of the Saint Petersburg delegation which unsuccessfully tried to win the 2004 Olympic Games for that city.

Acknowledgements in the recent times

In its 1991 publication, Objectif An 2000,the FIG have a section entitled "Some of the Gymnasts who contributed to the Major Developments". 18 female Artistic gymnasts are named of whom Davydova is one. [cite book | title = FIG Objectif An 2000 | pages = 122.s | year = 1991 ] On the IG website they feature "Legends of Gymnastics". 15 female Artistic gymnasts are profiled, one of whom is Davydova. [cite web | title = Yelena Davydova | work = International Gymnast Online | url = http://www.intlgymnast.com/legends/davydova.html | accessmonthday = March 26 | accessyear = 2006 ] In 1994 to commemorate the World Championships in Brisbane Australia the Australian government produced first day covers of several famous gymnasts including DavydovaIn 1996 she was invited by the Atlanta organising committee to the Olympic Games where she met US President Bill Clinton..In 2000 Elena was one of the gymnasts pictured in the International Gymnast’s (IG) Millennium calendar.On may 11th 2007 Elena was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall Of Fame ( IGHOF) – regarded as the Nobel Prize for gymnastics - where special mention was made of her as a gymnastics innovator.

pecial skills

Brian Bakalar, owner and head coach at Gymnastics Revolution in Bethel, Connecticut, U.S. wrote on his website in 2004 that "In the late 1970s Elena Davydova first performed a skill that has become the basis for today's optional uneven bar routines — the Giant" [cite web | title = The Giant | work = Gymnastics Revolution | url = http://www.gymnasticsrevolution.com/Parents%2021.html|accessmonthday = March 26 |accessyear = 2006 ] . Indeed, Davydova advanced the difficulty of gymnastics through the introduction of her moves, and is one of a select few to have introduced a new move and/or trend on each piece of apparatus. Davydova was the first female gymnast to perform a Giant and a Tkatchev on bars; a front tuck and side-somi on the beam, a round-off flic-flac, which led to many of the different dismounts we have today; a 1 1/2 twist, punch front combination, an Arabian 1 3/4 somersault, and a piked Arabian 1 3/4 somersault on floor (both Arabian 1 3/4 moves removed from the code of points for female gymnasts by the FIGin 1993 for health and safety reasons. Effectively banned because of their danger and difficulty); on vault she invented the full twist-on, tucked front somersault off. This is worth 9.7 points, 25 years later today. Many gymnasts in 1980 performed the layout Tsukahara vault, now worth 9.1 under the current "Code of Points".This famous vault she invented created an entire different vault family in the COP.

Achievements (non-Olympic)

References

On-line sources

http://www.geminigymnastics.com

http://www.geocities.com/tatiana_lysenko/list.html

Off-line sources

*International Gymnast magazine
** February 1077 p.28-30
** July 1980 p.30
** August 1980 p.26
** September 1980 p.6,15,29.
** October 1980 p.11,21
** November 1980 p.30-31
** December 1980 p.48-50,62,70.
** March 1981 p.6
** August 1981 p.42-43
** January 1982 p.28
** March 1982 p.75
** January 1998 p.49
** July/August 2007 p.36

*British Gymnast magazine
** September 1980 p.7,11,13-15,21-24,26,31
** April 1981 p. 11,21-24
** September 1981 p.29
** November 1981 p.25

*FIG World Gymnastics magazine
** Vol 2,num 3
** Vol 3,num 1
** Vol 4,num 1.

* FIG Bulletin May 1983.

*Soviet Gymnastic Stars, Vladimir Golubev,1979,p.163,207.

*638 Olympic Champions, Valeri Steinbach,1984,p.217,218.

*Wonderful moment of victory,1983,p.8 -14.

*Artistic Gymnastics: A history of development, Anton Gadjos,1997,p.264,265.