The 1978 World Champion died Dec. 22nd.
The wonderful athlete, who pushed Nadia and popularized full-in on Floor and double back off beam, was paralysed in a training disaster before the 1980 Olympics.
Unlike the fluke accident suffered by Drew Donnellan, the paralysis of Mukhina was the subject of much conjecture. And even criticism of the coaches involved.
Sadness at Christmas Times….!
At the age of five years Elena lost both of her parents. She was raised by her grandmother, Anna Ivanovna. As a youngster she took an interest in gymnastics and figure skating. When an athletic scout visited her school, she eagerly volunteered to try out for gymnastics. …
Up until 1975, Elena Mukhina was an unremarkable gymnast, but after then, she teamed up with men’s coach Mikhail KLIMENKO and she transformed into one of the most show stopping gymnasts of her time: In 1976 she won the title of a Soviet junior all-around champion, but she did not qualify for the Olympic team (Montreal).
After winning three European titles at the continental championships in Prague (1977), she burst onto the scene at the 1978 World Championships in Strasbourg, France.
In one of the most stunning all-around performances in history, she won the gold medal, beating out Olympic Champions Nadia COMANECI and Nellie KIM among others. She also tied for the gold medal in the floor exercise event final, as well as winning the silver in balance beam and uneven bars.
She quickly established herself as an athlete to watch for at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
In late 1979 Mukhina suffered a broken leg, which kept her out of the World Championships in Fort Worth, Texas, a competition in which the Soviet team suffered its first defeat at the hands of their archrivals from Romania.
After surgery Mukhina’s training continued despite her leg having not completely healed. When it was discovered that the fracture had not healed properly, Mukhina was rushed into surgery again. Because of her injury, she had great difficulty re-mastering a signature tumbling run, a Thomas salto (a 1 and 3/4 flip with 1 1/2 twists).
Two weeks before the Moscow Olympics, while practicing this exact move, she underrotated the salto, crash-landed on her chin, and her spine snapped. She was rendered a quadriplegic. …
Following the injury, the Soviet Gymnastics Federation remained secretive about the events surrounding Mukhina’s cataclysmic injury.
Elena herself was reclusive following the incident, seldom publicly discussing the accident.
In a rare interview with “Ogonyok MAGAZINE”, Elena spoke about the Soviet gymnastics program, criticizing it for deceiving the public about her injury, and for the system’s insatiable desire for gold medals and championships:
“…for our country, athletic successes and victories have always meant somewhat more than even simply the prestige of the nation. They embodied (and embody) the correctness of the political path we have chosen, the advantages of the system, and they are becoming a symbol of superiority. Hence the demand for victory – at any price. As for risk, well… We’ve always placed a high value on risk, and a human life was worth little in comparison with the prestige of the nation…”
What ever happened to Elena Mukhina
Elena Mukhina – Wikipedia
17 comments ↓
That is very sad. Thanks for detailing Mukhina’s life. I learned a bit more about her than I had known or had forgotten about.
This is so sad, and makes you feel very helpless. But what was the cause of her death? According to IG it has not been detailed. Let us hope that gymnasts now aren’t pressured in the same way that Lena was, and that the chance of this happening to anyone else just isn’t there anymore. Rest in peace Lena.
I have read in Russian Press that heart stopped, and in fact he was not feeling well at all and spent her days in bad.
I always felt for Elena – first saw her in 1976 at the School SPartakiade in Lvov
whoa yelena rocks .cant beleive shes dead
I´ve just known about the whole lifestory of Elena. First time I saw her was six months ago or so, in a revival of Spanish TV. I thought she was very good and it samed to me a little bit illogical that she hadn`t been at the Moscow Olympics. I forgot for a while until two days ago when, searching for extremly hard gymnastics training methods i youtube.com, I saw the USA movie “Moe than a game”. There I saw Yelena telling about her injury. I couldn`t beleive it. Then I went on searching about her tragedy and I found she had died last year. Then I looked for videos of her when she was the great champion. I just could not beleive the difference between the power and grace those days and the image of her at her wheelchair.
Then I saw a tribute on youtube to her. You can see her little face, staring at nowhere, sitted down in the floor wandering why she was suffering there. There is another image I can`t get out of my mind: she is practising the double back one time and another and another, and then she felt and hit the floor with her face, and then she felt into a foam pit, where she stood for a while, crying I suppose.
I just can´t imagine the moment she broke her spine. What would have been the reaction of her coaches? What did they do with her? What were her thoughts? I suppose all the world rushed into her mind and I can imagine her all alone in a hospital crying in silence, remembering her days of glory and overall, his mother.
At least, she would be better in heaven than here.
Rest in peace, we will remember you as the angel you were.
[...] Elena Mukhina dead at 46 [...]
Sometimes this world is so sad. To Elena Mukhina, there is such pain in her stoic stares. Most of the pictures of her lovely face are without a smile – without any joy. For only brief seconds in the videos of her on YouTube does she smile, and one hopes that it is born from a new joy that came to her. But it is always short-lived. Emptiness and sadness return to her eyes and she is once more trapped in a lonely world where she was never nurtured, and where a Mommy’s kisses and cuddling were foreign to her. I feel despair when I remember her. I feel guilty for not knowing that as my hair gently danced on sweet summer breezes, Elena’s hair was pulled back too far into a pony tail for endless hours of unimaginable hard work, nay torture. She has no idea that Disneyland was even a possibility. She died knowing this and it’s my fault. I didn’t know. I wasn’t listening.
As the World Champion standing on the podium, in a moment for most that bathes a champion in glory, she stands militant and hates the flag that she watches fly higher than the rest, as the anthem of the stark, emotionless state that brought her there echoes throughout the stadium. She hears her own despair over the crowd’s cheers, and the sting of her coaches’ taunts of her laziness spin around in her head, piercing the glory that should be hers. She is totally alone as if nothing was happening.
My heart bleeds for her and aches to bring her back and hold her until she feels safe and loved. I will never forget the many pictures of her, and I will create a little legend for her that will make me watch for others who can be rescued from the pain that was her life.
I truly wish for her to sleep in perfect peace on fluffy pillows, to fly with the angels and to be ensconced in pure love.
Sweet Elena. What I wouldn’t give to bring you back and be your Mommy. Cry no more little Lena. I will forever cry for you.
Poetically stated. Thanks Mercedes.
Just my 2 cents worth, Coach Rick. She lived, she won, she died. No more than that in so many minds. There was so much more to it, Rick, and I’m compelled to post that no one should forget that there are PEOPLE behind the muscles: little girls with dancing pink ponies and pretty dresses in their big blue eyes; young demure women planning their wedding day…But NOT according to the state. Such backward thinking spawns stories like Lena’s and it hurts me to my core. I write this in the spirit of Lena’s view of things as they were for her although I have never been to Russia; I never met Elena Mukhina or any other champion (with the exception of Elvira Saadi who coaches in a gym in the city where I live); I haven’t even ever been to an olympic games, sitting in the stands. I was a gymnast for 11 years and then a coach for 25 years. Now I am a mother and I can’t imagine giving my child away to a state like that – life like that.
Again, Rick…just my 2 cents worth. I grieve for Elena on her birthdays, and on her death anniversaries. She didn’t have to be a gymnast which is a sport close to my heart either. She was a lonely little person who never had a family or a chance. Where I live, we take a mother’s love for granted.
THE CASE OF ELENA MUKHINA IT’S ONE OF SADDEST IN HISTORY OF GYMNASIA,
WHEN I READ ABOUT HER CASE I FOND ON HER DEEPLY,
MANY CASES LIKE ELENA HAS BEEN REPEATED AROUND THE WORLD AND NOBODY WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, TO STOP THESE BRUTAL METHODS, JUST TO BE GOLD MEDAL COSTING THE HEALTH, ALL THE COACHES OF GYMNASIA ARE PUSHING TOO HARD, THAT SEEMS MORE RUSSIAN ROULETTE THAN A SPORT, JUST TAKE A LOOK IN YOUTUBE VIDEOS (GYMNASTICS MONTAGE “NO ALWAYS HAPPY ENDING”) THE YOU’LL SEE WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.
Elena Mukhina, was a great gymnast i wish i knew her, i wish she didn’t have to die but she did. She was inspired by all of her fans everyone loved her so much. I loved her even though i never knew her and i never met her i still wish i could of gone to see her perform before she died. I am writing about her now and how she died, then i am going to read it to my mom. She was such a good gymnast. Goodbye Elena i will miss you!!!!!!!!!!!
Send us a copy, Nicole, if you’d like to share it with the world.
I just heard about Elena Mukhina on Russian radio.What a heartbreaking story which moved to tears & prompted me to read further on her life story.
i think she was a real butterfly from heaven.
goodbye elena “yelena” mukhina
you brought ukraine sunshine
may there always be sunshine for you with the angels
i am sad…you were rendered a so disabled bedridden quadriplegic in ukraine and soviet union
since all who murdered you did not repent they are not in heaven they are in hellfire
it’s the ukraine she was born in.
she was RAISED in russia.
i assume she was a real butterfly from soviet standards.
i think renald knysh was the reason mukhina is dead.
about me:
i think my bangs are dark…my eyes are dark brown.
my hair is reddISH
it’s the ukraine she was born in.
she was RAISED in russia.
i assume she was a real butterfly from soviet standards.
i think renald knysh was the reason mukhina is dead.
about me:
i think my bangs are dark…my eyes are dark brown.
my hair is reddISH
go elena!
4 jesus
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