Gymnast Biographies

Usa Gymnasts

Amanda Borden

Amanda Borden was born on May 10, 1977 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has one brother, Bryan, who is now twenty two. Even when she was very young she was very athletic, but couldn't find a sport that suited her. She played T-ball, soccer, ice skating, and ballet before going to gymnastics. When she was thirteen she switched to the Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy run by Mary Lee Tracy. She had a lot of potential as a gymnast but starting in 1991 she had a series of injuries that prevented her from competing in several events. Three months before the 1991 US Championships she broke her elbow but when she resumed training after six weeks she pulled a hamstring so bad she was forced to wait for another competition. By the time she was healthy again she went to the 1992 Olympic Trials, placing fifth, getting her a spot on the team. But she was pulled off the team along with Kim Kelly for two other gymnasts who did not compete at the trials. In 1993 she placed fourth in the US Championships and placed highly in many other events that year. She decided to try for the 1996 Olympics and kept training. In 1995 she graduated from Finneytown High School, a straight A student and homecoming queen. In 1996 while she was training for the American Classic she had yet another injury, she had broken a metacarpal in her hand. Luckily, she was able to compete eight weeks later at the olympic trials. She not only made it to the olympics, she was unamomously voted team captain by the other team members, and her teamate and best friend, Jaycie Phelps. She is planning on attending the University of Ohio.

Amy Chow

Amy Chow was born on May 15, 1978 in San Jose California. Her mother, Susan was born in Hong Kong, and her father was born in China. They both emigrated to the US and were married soon after. She has a brother, Kevin, who is 16 and also a gymnast. When Amy was 3 her mother tried to enroll her in a ballet class, but when they said Amy was too young she decided to bring her to the West Valley Gymnastics School, where she has been training for 15 years. Amy has also had her share of injuries, one sprained ankle that caused her to miss the 1995 World Championships. For several years Amy dived competetively during the summer but had to give that up so she could spend more time for gymnastics. She is also an accomplished pianist and graduated from Castilleja High School with a 4.0 GPA. She made it to the olympics despite a fall on the beam at the trials. Not only did she make it to the olympics, she got a gold medal in the team competition and silver on the uneven bars, her speciality. She has two moves named after her. They are "Chow 1" and "Chow 2". She is planning to attend Stanford in the fall of 1997.

Dominique Dawes

Dominique Dawes was born on November 20, 1976 in Silver Spring, Maryland. She has a sister Danielle who is 23 and a brother Don who is 13. Her parents enrolled her in gymnastics when she was six because she was very enerjetic. She did not idiolize any gymnast in particular, just liked doing gymnastics. One gymnast that did have an impact on her was Daniella Silvas in 1987. She made it to the 1992 olympics and got a bronze in the team competition but didn't qualify for any individual events. In 1994 she was the first female athlete since 1969 to take all available five gold medals at the US National Championships. In 1995 she had a series of injuries, a stress fracture in her foot and another stress fracture in her wrist. At the 1996 US National Championships she was fully recovered and won four gold medals. She got a spot on the 1996 olympic team and won a gold medal in team competition and bronze in the floor exercise. She has been accepted to Stanford University and is planning to study criminal justice or acting. She is currently starring on broadway in Grease as Patty Simcox.

Shannon Miller

Shannon Miller was born on March 10, 1977 in Edmond Oklahoma. She has a sister, Tessa, who is 21, and a brother, Troy, who is 15. When she was young she had to wear braces on her legs because they weren't growing right, but soon learned to walk without them. Shannon and her sister Tessa were both enrolled in gymnastics at a young age. When she was nine she started training with Steve Nunno. In 1992 she had a spot on the olympic team, but shortly before the games she broke her arm while practicing on the uneven bars. Yet, at the olympics she got the most medals of any US athlete-five. At the 1993 World Championships she won three gold medals, including all-around. At the US Olympic Sports Festival and set or tied seven gymnastics records. At the 1995 World Championships she sprained her ankle and could only compete on the bars. She is also the only US gymnast to win two consecutive World Championship all-around titles. She made it to the 1996 olympics and won two gold medals in team and beam. She plans on attending University of Oklahoma next spring.

Dominique Moceanu

Dominique Moceanu was born on September 30, 1981 in Hollywood, California and now lives in Houston, Texas where she used to train with coach, Bela Karolyi, then trained with Arthur Akopian at the Cypress Academy. She is now training with Mihai Brestyan and is in the process of building her own gym. She has a sister, Christina who is also a gymnast. Her parents were born in Romania and were gymnasts there also. When she was six months old her parents tested her strength by hanging her on a clothesline to see if she could hang on. She did and did not let go until the clothesline broke. When she was three her parents requested that Dominique start training with Bela but he said to come back later when she was older. In the meantime she trained at Lafleur' Gymnastics in Florida. She did go to train with Bela a few years later. When she was ten she was the youngest qualifyer ever at the US Nationals and the youngest gymnast to ever win a gold medal on the balance beam. Two years later she won the gold medals all-around as well as gold on the floor exercise and vault and bronze on the balance beam and uneven bars. The next year she was in the senior division competing against Shannon Miller, Amy Chow, Kerri Strug, and Jaycie Phelps and once again won the gold all-around. At thirteen she was the youngest national champion in history. She hadn't had many serious injuries until right before the olympic trials when an x-ray showed a four inch stress fracture in her right tibia. Bela petitioned to the olympic committe to accept Dominique as an olympic team member based on her scores at the nationals. At the olympics she won gold medal in the team competition and finished eighth all-around. Many people hope to see her again at the 2000 olympics and is even favored by some people to win the all-around.

Jaycie Phelps

Jaycie Phelps was born on September 26, 1979 in Greenfield, Indiana and currently lives in Cinncinnati, Ohio. She has one older brother Dennis. Her parents Jack and Cheryl combined their names to get Jaycie's when she was born. She started gymnastics when she was four after her preschool teacher suggested it after a field trip. Later she started training with Mary Tracy Lee. She made it to the 1996 olympics and won a team gold medal. Her best apparatus are the bars and beam. She likes watching soap operas, Friends, and Home Improvement and she likes the movie Dumb and Dumber. Some of her hobbies and shopping, watching movies and reading. She likes music by Celine Dion and books by Mary Higgins Clark. Her favorite subject in school is chemistry. She plans on staying in gymnastics and touring with the mag 6 for the first part of the year and hopefully making it to Sydney.

Kim Zmeskal

Kim Zmekal was born on February 6, 1976 in Houston, Texas. She has a sister Melissa and a brother Eric. She started training with Bela Karolyi when she was eight. She was a two time US champion. She was the first American female gymnast to win the gold medal in the all around competition at the world championships. The Americans also won the silver team medal, the first time the US had ever beat the Romanians. Kim and Svetlana Boguinskaya had been performing almost perfect routines throughtout the all around and before the last event Svetlana was behind by 0.037 points. Kim got 9.987 on the floor exercise while Svetlana got 9.912 on the uneven bars. After the competition Svetlana refused to shake hands with Kim, sure that she would have won if the competition had been held in Europe. She was thought by some to be the favorite for the all-around at the 1992 olympics, but fell off the beam in the team competition. She went on to give excellent performances the next day helping USA get the bronze. She was trying for a comeback in 1996 but suffered injuries to her knee and was not able.

Romanian Gymnasts

Gina Gogean

Gina was born on September 9, 1977 in Cimpuri, Romania. Her favorite apparatus is the floor exercise and she thinks the hardest part of gymnastics is being interviewed because she is very shy. She is nicknamed "the technician" by some of her fans. She was scheduled to be with the Gold Tour but it was cancelled.

Simona Amanar

Simona Amanar was born on October 7, 1979 in Constanta, Romania. She has a younger brother, Andrei. She started gymnastics at the age of six after attening a gymnastics meet and becoming interested in the sport. She won a total of four medals at the 1996 Olympics and was the only Romanian to win a gold medal. Her favorite apparatus is the vault and her least favorite is the beam. She admires the gymnasts Nadia Comaneci and Vitaly Scherbo. She also likes figure skating. Her favorite figure skater is Surya Bonaly. She likes watching action movies and cooking. She likes music by Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson. She was with the Gold Tour before they cancelled it. She wants to be a gymnastics coach when she is older.

Ana Maria Bican

Ana Maria Bican was born on March 3, 1980 in Zarnesti, Romania. She has two brothers, Ion and Catalin. She began gymnastics when she was six. Her favorite apparatus is the vault. She made it to the 1996 Olympics but was unable to compete because of a knee injury. Her favorite gymnasts are Oksana Fabrichnova and Gina Gogean. In her spare time she likes to read and play nintendo.

Mirela Tugurlan

Mirela Tugurlan was born on September 4, 1980 in Focsani, Romania. She has one brother, Daniel. She competed at the 1996 Olympics as an alternate and won the team bronze medal. Her favorite apparatus is the uneven bars. Her favorite subjects in school are physics and chemistry. She enjoys reading horror stories and watching horror movies.

French Gymnasts

Ludvine Furnon

Ludvine Furnon was born on October 4, 1980 in Nimes France. She has two sisters, Natalie and Marjorie.Ludvine didn't start gymnastics until she was twelve which was only around five years ago. When she was thirteen she started training seriously and joined the national team. After training there for less than a year she became the first French female gymnast ever to win a medal at the World Championships. She is best known for her floor exercise and performs a very difficult vault, a double twisting Yurchenko vault. Ludvine, or her nickname which is Lulu, is currently in her fifth year of a sports school she is attending. She has a dog named Darque Ebene and a cat named Enzo. She enjoys shopping, seeing movies and reading comic strips in her spare time.

Russian Gymnasts

Roza Galieva

Roza Galieva was born on September 28, 1977 in Almalyk, Uzbekistan. When she was five years old she started gymnastics and eight years later became a member of the Soviet Junior Team. The same year she helped the Soviet team win the Junior European Team Title. At the 1991 European Junior European Championships she finished 12th AA, but managed to win the balance beam title. In 1991 at the World Championships she helped the Soviets win the team gold once again. In 1992 Roza and other Soviet gymnasts went to the First World Apparatus Championships, where she was doing very well in the preliminary round, but got sick because of the cold gym and poor conditions and was not able to compete along with several other gymnasts. She made it to the 1992 olympics and did very well and even made it to the all-around while teamate Tatiana Gutsu who fell off the beam did not. Because their coaches thought that Tatiana had a better chance at the all-around they pulled Roza out of the all-around, telling the press it was because of an injury. Tatiana did win the all-around and since then Tatiana and Roza haven't spoken with each other. After the olympics she competed with Uzbekistan for two years, but in 1995 after not being able to compete in the 1994 World Championships because of Uzbekistan officials that messed up entrance applications. Later in 1995 Leonid Arkayev asked if she would consider competing for Russia and she accepted the offer. She then went on to the 1996 olympics where she won a team silver.

Dina Kotchetkova

Dina Kotchetkova was born on July 27, 1977 in Moscow. She started gymnastics when she was five after Soviet sports officials came to her kindergarden and thought she had potential. When she was younger she liked the beam but as she got older she started to like the uneven bars and floor exercise better because of her remarkable tumbling. She continued to excell in gymnastics but didn't make it to the 1992 Olympics and was forced not to compete in the 1993 World because of a broken leg. She became the Russian National Champion in 1994 after scoring a 10 on the floor. 1995 was a difficult year for Dina as she was having pain in her foot and was not able to perform her best. 1996 was the exact, starting off good by winning several different medals in different competitions. The rest of the year did not go as well unfortunately. She made it to the 1996 Olympics and won a bronze medal in the team competition. On the final rotation of the all-around she was tied for first and was up on the vault, her worst event. She had to decide whether to go with a vault worth 10 which she was not always very consistent with or a vault worth 9.9 that she could perform better than anyone. She did the one worth 10 but did poorly and fell to sixth place. She failed to win any individual event medals. She is planning on continuing gymnastics and was scheduled with the Gold Tour that was cancelled.

Ukrainian Gymnasts

Lilia Podkopayeva

Lilia Podkopayeva was born on August 15, 1978 in Donetsk, Ukraine. She began gymnastics when she was five after her grandparents saw a poster on a train of a gymnast and decided it would be a good sport for her. She had her first competition when she was seven, which she won. When she was eleven she got a spot on the Ukranian National Team. Her favorite apparatus is the floor exercise which she won a gold medal on at the 1996 Olympics. She also won two other medals, gold all-around, and silver beam. She was the highest scoring gymnast at the olympics and got that score twice. She says her biggest influence has been her grandmother. She likes ice cream and chocolate. She collects stuffed animals in her spare time. She also watches soap operas such as "Tema" and "Santa Barbara". She was with the John Hancock Tour along with the Mag 6. She is currently writing a book about her life.

Chinese Gymnasts

Mo Huilan

Mo Huilan was born on July 19, 1979 in Guilin, China. She has been nicknamed "mighty mouse" by her fans. She has a sister, Fang, who is also a gymnast. She started gymnastics when she was six years old. When she was fourteen she attended her first major international competition, The Asian Games, and only a fall on the beam prevented her from taking all six gold medals. She was the first Chinese gymnast ever to win that many gold medals at the Asian Games. She finished fifth in the all-around at the 1996 olympics after stepping out of the mat on her last routine, the floor exercise. Some of her hobbies are playing nintendo, reading, watching tv, and reading. She has several moves named after her, one is the Mo sommersalt, which is performed on the uneven bars and is a one and a half forward sommersault with a catch. She also does a one hand handstand on the balance beam that is very impressive.

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