ROMANIA’S FINEST-GYMNAST DANIELA SILIVAS
| Her Story |  |
When Daniela Silivas retired from gymnastics, International Gymnast magazine (May 1991) carried the following tribute:
"Hers was a career filled with hope, expectations… disappointment. A career complete with 10 Olympics and world gold medals, but incomplete because none of those was for the all-around title. If winning in gymnastics takes any luck at all, Daniela Silivas was never in the right place at the right time. A stumble here, a slip there. Always something unexpected to push Silivas out of first place. But she kept getting back up to try again. Until Silivas, nobody remembered who finished second. The silver-medalist always got what she deserved. Not Silivas; she deserved better. She deserved to win.
"For every all-around title she lost, Silivas earned a multitude of new fans. All over the world she was cheered as the hometown favourite, except, of course, in the USSR, where ironically she took her only major all-around title. She won the 1987 Europeans in Moscow, a feat too unbelievable to expect, or even hope for. But she did it anyway."
I welcome all information and comments about Daniela Silivas. The more the merrier, in order to make this as complete a record as possible. Also, does anyone have videos of Silivas in competition? I have been searching for the Seoul Olympics (especially the New Zealand feed with commentary by Marian Duncan and Tony Palmer) for over 8 years. Feel free to email me.
I would appreciate it if someone, anyone, could give me information on photographs I have included here. Other than those taken in Seoul, I really have very little idea of the source of most of the photographs on this website.
Many of the images found on this site were taken by Eileen Langsley and can be found in 'Gymnastics the Art of Sport', a marvellous coffee table book, well worth the decent price, with gorgeous photography by Eileen Langsley. Highly recommended. To order: Gymnastics: The Art of Sport
Adapted from and with acknowledgements to :
Gym Stars (Spring 1996)** International Gymnast (May 1991)** The International Herald Tribune (26th Sept. 1988) **The London Sunday Times (18th Sept 1988)** The London Times (24th and 26th Sept. 1988) **Time Magazine (Sept 19 and Oct 3, 1988)**Newsweek (Oct 3, 1988)**Reuters News Agency**Chronicle of the Olympics 1896-1996**Gymnastics The Art of Sport by Eileen Langsley**The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics by David Wallechinsky**Debbie Poe
I would like to thank the following who have humoured me, listened to my grumblings and mumblings, and actually bothered to email me information and many of the pictures included on this page: Mention-of-Honour must go to the most indispensible JENNIFER FRESCO for all those patient HTML-ing, words of advice and the way-too-long loan of your tapes. Talking of tapes, my eternal gratitude to Toni Orchard of NZ and Jahni Sheehan from Down Under for helping alleviate my Seoul angst. Many thanks too to Louis P. Wooding (life-saver!), Chloe Perbet (esp. for the patient checking!), Kyle Whelliston, Andy Wright (real shame about the lost emails), and others (including Shelley Nash and Pamela-Marie Campbell) who have been bombarded with my tales of woe. Cheers!
Special big thank you to my colleague Yong Cher Wee, without whose help, you will not be looking at most of the images today. Not forgetting my long suffering brother, Shao Wei, who has had to endure my endless 'duh'ness when it comes to HTML. This homepage would not have been possible without you two. Cheers!
