Oksana Chusovitina: a good athlete over the years is only getting better

Like all sports where flexibility is required, coordination of movements, gymnastics is a sport for young people. Even not for the young - for very young. This is especially true of women's gymnastics. The heyday of the form is in girls for 17-19 years. Gymnast at the age of 25 years - almost a long-liver in this sport. The more surprising is the story of Oksana Chusovitina. The Olympics in Rio became the seventh for this athlete! Who is Oksana Chusovitina? Biography of this woman deserves the attention of all sports fans.

How it all began

Oksana Chusovitina started her sports career in a difficult time. The beginning of the 90's, the collapse of the country, a general uncertainty. All this was destroying the fate of adult, hardened athletes.

Big sport has learned such an athlete, as Chusovitina Oksana, in 1991. At the age of 16 she performed great at the World Championships in gymnastics in Indianapolis, while still defending the colors of the Soviet flag. Gold in the base jump and team competitions, silver in the floor exercises - an excellent result for the debutante.

But on her first in the life of the Olympics Oksana went as a member of a completely different team. The USSR collapsed, and the sportswoman played for the CIS team. Then she received her first and, unfortunately, the last while the gold Olympic medal in team exercises.

At the turn of the ages

After the collapse of the big country, many athletes faced a difficult choice - which of the republics to link their lives with? Many Ukrainian football players, for example, preferred to play for the Russian national team, there were other examples of changing citizenship. Among these athletes was and Chusovitina Oksana. The gymnast was born in Bukhara, she lived in Tashkent.

In those troubled times many people left Uzbekistan. The parents of the sportswoman also moved to the Russian Federation. But Chusovitina Oksana decided to stay in her beloved city and play for the national team of Uzbekistan.

In 1993, she still traveled the country as part of a group of athletes, which gathered the former Olympian Bilozerchev. For performances athletes received decent money for those times. The gymnast herself told that young, unthinking girls bought whole boxes of equipment and put their houses together, not knowing where to spend their money. But it did not last long. Sponsorship expired, Bilozerchev went abroad. Oksana Chusovitina began to represent the national team of Uzbekistan at international competitions.

Sport pride of Uzbekistan

Such successes, as a part of the Soviet team, athlete did not achieve. There was bronze at the World Championships, several awards at the Asian Games. As part of the Uzbek team, she went to her second Olympics in Atlanta. There, unfortunately, Oksana Chusovitina was left without medals.

The most important event in her life happened during this period on a personal front. After marrying the wrestler Bakhodir Kurbanov, she gives birth to his son Alisher. Most gymnasts leave the big sport after the birth of the child, but for Uzbekistan Oksana was not just an ordinary sportswoman. For the republic, not spoiled by sports awards, the legendary sportswoman, who became the Olympic champion, was the most real banner.

The sportswoman continues her performances after leaving the decree. In order not to spray her powers, she concentrates all attention on her crown discipline-the base jump.

After 1996, as a legionnaire, she represents a sports club in Germany. From time to time protecting his colors, she receives some money for it. At the same time at that time she had no idea about changing her sports citizenship. Chusovitina Oksana remained true to the Uzbek team. In the 2000s, medals were again showered at the World Championships - gold, silver, bronze. In her honor at home, even released a stamp.

Difficult period

In 2002 Oksana Alisher's child became ill with leukemia. To treat a three-year-old child required a lot of money, which was not in the family of athletes. To collect 120,000 euros, needed for a course of treatment, sold an apartment in Tashkent, personal cars. But this money was not enough. In despair the athlete seeks help in Germany.

The sports club, for which Oksana is speaking, helps her, a charitable foundation is being created. Immediately after a terrible diagnosis, Alisher goes through the first course of treatment. After three years, the course of the disease stops. As a token of gratitude to the country that saved her son, Oksana Chusovitina begins to represent the national team of Germany at international tournaments.

In 2006, as part of the new team, she already takes bronze at the World Championships in a solid age for a gymnast. There is a whole scattering of medals at the European Championships.

As if gaining a second wind, she, 16 years after Barcelona, again won a medal at the Olympic Games in Beijing. Considering the immeasurably increased level of competitors for a decade and a half, this silver medal is akin to gold. He ends his relationship with the German team Oksana at the Olympics in London.

Returning to the colors of Uzbekistan

After 2012, the sportswoman decides to complete her breathtaking sports career in her homeland. Wishing to return the debt of gratitude to her native country, she plans to spend another season, speaking for the team of Uzbekistan. But the farewell dragged on for as long as 4 years.

Along the way, Oksana Chusovitina wins silver at the Asian Games, wins at the World Cup stages. Olympiad in Rio becomes the seventh in his career. Never before this has happened in the sport of high achievements. Although Oksana did not win awards, the very hit in the top ten at the age of 41 years is already a fantastic achievement. And this is in the form of sport, where 25-year-old young girls leave for "retirement".

Now Oksana is a coach in the national team in artistic gymnastics. Son Alisher successfully coped with the disease, playing football for the youth team. Who knows, maybe Oksana Chusovitina will again perform at the next Olympiad.