Ekaterina Kramarenko

Ekaterina Kramarenko ( _ru. Екатерина Крамаренко), born 1991 in St Petersburg, Russia is a Russian artistic gymnast.

At the 2007 European Gymnastics Championships, Kramarenko placed 5th in the All Around Final and won the Bronze medal on the Uneven Bars.

Ekaterina was embroiled in controversy at the 2007 World Championships Team Final when she bailed on her vault and placed her hands on the vaulting table to stop her momentum. This automatically earned her a score of zero, dropping the Russian team from medal contention to last place. Ekaterina only needed a mediocre score to secure the bronze medal for Russia and theoretically could have sat down her vault and still won the medal. Ekaterina was inconsolable after her vault and was comforted by her teammate Yulia Lozhechko as Elena Zamolodchikova completed her vault, knowing her score would not matter. This controversy reignited debate among the Gymnastics Community about the '3 up, 3 count' team final format and whether it ought to be abolished and the final reverted back to a format where a score can be dropped.

When asked to comment on the incident, Russian coach Andrei Rodionenko explained, "Nobody knows what happened, it was a shock for everyone." [http://www.stuttgart-tourist.de/ENG/city/turn_wm.htm] [ [http://web.wcsn.com/article/news.jsp?ymd=20070905&content_id=40844&vkey=gymnastics_news&id=34012&dpre= WCSN.com: News ] ] [http://www.charlotte.com/472/story/263093.html]

Although some fans initially thought it was a bad decision, she was again selected to represent Russia at the 2008 Summer Olympics. In the preliminary round she started off by sticking her double twisting Yurchenko, the vault she missed in Stuttgart. She also had a good routine on bars for a 15.500. Beam was not so good. She had a fall on her front pike somersault, and only scored 14.625. She did a solid floor routine to earn 15.150 and earn a placing in the floor exercise final. Even though she was 10th all around after the preliminary routine, she could not compete in the all around final due to the two per country rule. She went on to have solid performances in the team competition, bringing in 15.500 on bars and 15.125 on floor (the highest score on the latter). However, multiple mistakes from her teammates dropped Russia to 4th place, less than a point behind Romania.

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