Olga Korbut

Author: Lida added 25-11-2012, 12:49

Olga Korbut was born on May 16, 1955 in Hrodna, Belarus. She is a Belarusian Soviet gymnast who won four gold medals and two silver medals at the Summer Olympics, in which she participated in 1972 and 1976 for the USSR team. She is also well known in the world as the "Sparrow from Minsk".

Korbut started training gymnastics when she was 8 years old. She was coached at first by Yelene Volchestskaya, a gold medal winner in 1964. Latter, when the coach find out that Olga has a talent she recommended that the head of the school, Renald Knysh, coach her personally.

Olga Korbut learned a difficult backward aerial somersault on the balance beam with Renald Knysh. She was the first gymnast who did it on the balance beam. She debuted this at a competition in the USSR in 1969.

In the same year, Olga completed a backflip on the uneven bars, which was the first backward release move ever performed by a woman. It was named Korbut flip and it is still considered one of the most difficult moves that can be performed on the bar. Nowadays Korbut flip is no longer allowed in gymnastics, because it involves standing on the high bar.

“Olga Korbut changed the world of gymnastics” one of the newspaper said.

After the Olympics in 1972, Olga Korbut became a star and in 1973 she was invited to make a tour around the United States. The tour had a triumph and after it there was the beginning of gymnastics boom in the USA.

In 1988 Olga Korbut was the first gymnast to be inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame

Olga graduated from her career after the Olympics in Montreal. In 1977 she received a diploma of the Faculty of History of the University of Grodno. In 1978 he married the famous singer, from famous at that time band "Pesnyary" Leonid Bortkevich and lived with him 22 years. They have a son. In 2000, they broke up. She currently lives in the U.S.

Last time Olga Korbut was in Belarus in 2007 with her son. While visiting she admitted that she misses the homeland.