Olga Mostepanova

Olga Vasilyevna Mostepanova (Template:Langx; born 3 January 1969) is a retired former Soviet gymnast. She won three gold medals at the World Championships.

Personal life

Mostepanova's birth year has been variously reported as 1968 or 1969. She herself stated that she was born on 3 January 1969 in Moscow.

She is married and the mother of five children.

Gymnastics career

A native of Moscow, Mostepanova began gymnastics at the age of 5 when her mother took her to the Dinamo club for a tryout. She remained at Dinamo, where she trained under coach Anna Anikina and later Vladimir Aksyonov. At the age of 10 she placed 7th all-around at the USSR Junior Championships and was named to the Soviet junior national team.

Over the next few years Mostepanova would become known as one of the promising gymnasts of the Soviet team. She enjoyed success in various junior international events, including the 1980 Champions All meet and the 1982 Junior European Championships, where she won the balance beam title, placed second on the vault and third in the all-around. She had a strong senior debut in 1983, winning two gold medals (team, balance beam) and two silvers (all-around, floor exercise) at the 1983 World Championships.

Mostepanova was considered an excellent medal prospect for the 1984 Olympics; however, due to the Eastern Bloc boycott, she did not compete in the Games. She led the Soviet team at the Friendship Games (also known as Olomouc, after the city in which the gymnastics competition was held; or the Alternate Games), the "alternative Olympics" for countries that had participated in the boycott. Olomouc was an exceptional competition for Mostepanova. In the all-around, she became the only gymnast in history to earn 10.0 scores on all four events in a major international competition, finishing the session with a perfect mark of 40.0. She nearly achieved this feat in both the qualifying round and the team finals as well, earning 10.0s on three of her four events. In total, Mostepanova earned twelve 10s in Olomouc and left with five of the six possible gold medals: team, all-around, vault, balance beam and floor exercise.

After the Friendship Games, she continued to compete, sharing in the team gold medal at the 1985 World Championships. She qualified for the all-around, but she and teammate Irina Baraksanova were pulled from the competition by the team coaches and replaced by Oksana Omelianchik and Elena Shushunova. This would be her last major meet for the USSR.

Eponymous skill

Mostepanova has one eponymous skill listed in the Code of Points.

Apparatus	Name	Description	DifficultyTemplate:Efn
Floor exercise	Mostepanova	Handspring forward with 1/1 turn (360°) after hand support or before	C (0.3)

Competition History

Year	Event	Team	AA	VT	UB	BB	FX
1979	Junior Friendship Tournament	Template:Gold1	5
	Junior USSR-ITA Dual Meet	Template:Gold1	4
1980	Champions All		Template:Bronze3
	Coca Cola International		4			Template:Bronze3	Template:Gold1
	Junior USSR Championships		4			Template:Bronze3
	Junior USSR Cup		Template:Silver2			Template:Gold1
1981	All-Union Championships of Specialized Sports Schools		Template:Gold1
	Druzhba	Template:Gold1	Template:Bronze3	Template:Gold1	Template:Gold1		4
	Junior GDR-USSR Dual Meet		Template:Silver2
	Schoolchildren's Spartakiade	Template:Gold1	5		5		5
1982	Junior European Championships		Template:Bronze3	Template:Silver2	7	Template:Gold1
	Riga International		Template:Gold1
	USA-USSR Dual Meet	Template:Gold1	4
	USSR Championships		Template:Bronze3	Template:Bronze3	Template:Silver2	Template:Bronze3	Template:Silver2
	USSR Cup		Template:Bronze3		Template:Bronze3	Template:Silver2
1983	Moscow News		Template:Bronze3			Template:Bronze3
	Moscow Spartakiade		Template:Gold1	Template:Gold1		Template:Gold1
	USA-USSR Dual Meet	Template:Gold1	Template:Silver2
	USSR Championships		8		Template:Silver2
	USSR Cup		Template:Silver2	7	Template:Gold1	Template:Gold1
	World Championships	Template:Gold1	Template:Silver2			Template:Gold1	Template:Silver2
1984	Friendship Games	Template:Gold1	Template:Gold1	Template:Gold1		Template:Gold1	Template:Gold1
	USSR Championships		Template:Silver2	Template:Gold1	Template:Bronze3	Template:Gold1
	USSR Cup		Template:Gold1
1985	USSR Championships			6			7
	USSR Cup		8
	World Championships		Template:Gold1