Biography
She started gymnastics in 1980 at age 8 and she retired at age 20 in 1992. She was coached by the famous mother/daughter combination of Albina and Irina Deriugina. Olexandra won the All-Around Bronze at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics she won the Gold.
When Olexandra was seven, her father (a construction engineer) was invited to work in Kiev. There Alexandra started training at the Deriugins School of Rhythmics. Tymonshenko's rise to gymnasts was when she placed 7th-place at the 1987 European Junior Championships on her first major international result. At age 14, she became The Junior Soviet Champion and, shortly after, collected three medals at a European championships: a gold for the Rope, a silver for the Hoop and a bronze for the Ribbon. Then, during a regular Soviet competition, she placed second behind the top of the Soviets, Marina Lobach of Belarus, and so won the right to go to the 1988 European championships.
At the 1988 European Championships in Helsinki, Finland she shared the All-Around title with two Bulgarians, Elizabeth Koleva and Adriana Dunavska. There she also won 3 golds - Hoop, Clubs and Rope. Several months later she won the All-Around Bronze at the Seoul Olympics, and after that she became the USSR All-Around Champion for the first time.
Timoshenko continued her rise in 1989, taking five out of six golds at the Sarajevo World Championships. Her streak would continue through numerous other international competitions, although she started to feel the pressure from up-and-coming teammates. She would grab her second European title in 1990, but spent the rest of the year she begin to struggle with the steadily rising Oksana Skaldina. In 1991, Timoshenko seemed poised to earn her second World title after a very strong early season. However, in Athens Timoshenko's difficulty level could not match Skaldina's and the former World Champion had to settle for silver. Inconsolable, though at the event finals she was able to sweep the Gold medals on all 4 apparatus.
The ex-USSR countries went to the competition as a Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona,Spain. Nevertheless, Timoshenko would set to win the Gold medal in All-around ahead of teammate Oksana Skaldina.
Read more about this topic: Olexandra Tymoshenko
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)
“The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)