Elena Muhina Gymnast Date of Birth: 01.06.1960 Country: Russia

Biography of Elena Mukhina

When Pierre de Coubertin wrote his "Ode to Sport," he could not have imagined that a hundred years later, sports would become a profession. His words about how "no achievement or record should be the result of fear or harm one's health" seem naive today. In the late 1970s, in the USSR and perhaps in the world, sports had not yet fully transitioned into a professional field. Although our athletes were already being punished for failures at international forums, and coaches were being dismissed. Most likely, 19-year-old gymnast Elena Mukhina also understood this. Otherwise, she would not have dared to perform a deadly element during the pre-Olympic training camp in Minsk 23 years ago... This is how Nellie Kim, Mukhina's teammate on the women's national team, the absolute world champion in 1979 and five-time Olympic champion, remembered it in her book: "We traditionally prepared for the Moscow Olympics in Minsk. Elena was the most hardworking among us. Due to injury, she missed the 1979 World Championships and now she worked tirelessly, making up for lost time and dreaming of participating in the Olympic Games... One day, Klimenko went to Moscow for a day. And a misfortune happened - Mukhina dared to perform the most difficult somersault without insurance during training. Elena jumped, but did not complete the rotation and hit her back on the vault. She was taken to the hospital, the training for us was disrupted, we were silent and could not talk about anything. Soon the worst was confirmed: Elena had a broken neck vertebra"... Mukhina's surgery was performed only on the third day. Even military hospitals have leaves... So the doctors could not restore her ability to move independently. It is good that she was saved at all. Because when the spinal cord is compressed for a long time, it is no longer about complete recovery, but about life and death... A similar incident happened a year ago with another gymnast, Maria Zasypkina. However, in a quarter of a century, medicine has made progress. In 1980, the methods of computer tomography or nuclear magnetic resonance, which provide images and the possibility of detailed surgical planning, were not yet used. And the doctors at the Central Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics (CITO) are 99% sure that Masha will not be paralyzed, like Mukhina...
Early Years

And Lena had a sign from above. In 1979, during one of the training sessions, she broke her leg and wanted to quit sports altogether. However, at that time, she was the only gymnast in CSKA who had a chance to qualify for the Olympics in Moscow. And her coach, Major Mikhail Klimenko of the Soviet Army, persuaded Mukhina to stay and fight for that right. Not just fight, but set a goal for her - to win a medal in the individual competition. Few people know that she started training even with a cast on her leg... Remembers the absolute world champion in 1966, two-time Olympic champion in Mexico City in 1968, Mikhail Voronin: "Mukhina was always characterized by fantastic diligence. She obeyed the coach unquestioningly. By the way, many accuse Mikhail Klimenko, the coach of the gymnast, in this tragedy. They say he was a terrible despot. But in my opinion, this is just a terrible coincidence. You can envy how professionally Mikhail Yakovlevich approached his work. I practically grew up with him and I know what I'm talking about. And how many great athletes he raised." Of course, it is difficult not to agree with Mikhail Voronin. But it is true that Klimenko was an obsessed coach who sometimes did not know the measure. Once, before the USSR Cup, Lena seriously injured her Achilles tendon. The team doctor asked for her to be withdrawn from the minor competition. Klimenko promised. And the next day, Lena, with a look of terrible pain on her face, went out onto the podium... However, she often had to perform, overcoming pain.
Champion's Career

In 1975, at the Spartakiade of the Peoples of the USSR, Lena suffered a detachment of the vertebral processes of her cervical vertebrae after an unsuccessful landing. With such an injury, it is impossible to turn your head. But every day, the team doctor went to the hospital to see her, and Klimenko took her to the gym, where she trained all day without the orthopedic neck brace necessary for the rehabilitation of such injuries. She did not pay attention to rib fractures, concussions, joint inflammations, sprained ankles, or dislocated fingers. Afraid of the coach's anger, she hid her injuries, secretly sniffed ammonia, and went to the next apparatus... After numerous surgeries in the summer of 1985, Elena was offered to consult with Valentin Dikul. However, as a result of the huge loads, she ended up in the hospital again after a couple of months - her kidneys failed. Throughout all this time, she never gave up. A few years after the terrible fall, she could sit in a chair, hold a spoon, and write a little. Teachers came to her, gave lectures, and took exams. She managed to graduate from the Moscow Institute of Physical Education. Looking at her, it is hard to believe that she was once called a coward for being afraid to learn new elements. Years of solitude made Lena look at the world differently and turn to God.
Triumphs and Setbacks

In fairy tales, a kind fairy always rewards a person who has endured the blows of fate. But in real life, justice does not always prevail. Although Lena had her own fairy - her grandmother Anna Ivanovna, who raised the future champion from the age of three. In school, Lena was no different from her peers, except for being unsmiling and shy. At that time, most girls dreamed of figure skating, admiring the grace of Irina Rodnina and Lyudmila Pakhomova. But Lena loved gymnastics. "Once, an unknown woman appeared in our class. She introduced herself as Antonina Pavlovna Olezhko, a master of sports. And she said: whoever wants to join the gymnastics section, raise your hand. I almost screamed with joy," Elena Vyacheslavovna later recalled. The successes shown by Lena did not go unnoticed, and she moved to the Dynamo club with Alexander Eglit. Eglit soon began working at CSKA and did not want to abandon his students. So the 14-year-old candidate for master of sports joined the "army." And then Eglit suggested to his colleague, Mikhail Klimenko, to take his ward into his group. Klimenko, who had previously trained only men, watched Mukhina in action and, after some thought, agreed. Gymnastics journalist Vladimir Golubev remembers: "I met the Klimenko brothers, Mikhail and Viktor, in 1967. I often visited the CSKA gymnastics hall. Misha was training Viktor at that time, and he was an incredible perfectionist. A few years later, Mikhail showed me Lena Mukhina, who was very modest and lovely. He said, 'She will be a world champion.' I didn't believe it in my heart - quiet people like her don't know how to get angry, and without anger, you won't become a champion. I was wrong. ...Klimenko immediately decided that Mukhina's trump card would be her incredible difficulty. He "designed" a fantastic program for Lena. Mukhina was the exception to the rule. At the age of 14, she started learning the double somersault, a "basic" element that all gymnasts can do at that age. When I looked at Lena, I compared her to Lyudmila Turischeva. The same figure, the same strict but internally soft, natural style, the same composure and seriousness."
Within two years, Lena made an incredible breakthrough. She joined Klimenko on December 28, 1974, and by the summer of 1976, she could have gone to the Olympics in Montreal! Her program at the time with unique combinations was called "cosmic." But Lena lacked stability, so sports officials did not dare to take her to Canada.
The hour for Mukhina struck the following year. At the USSR Championships, she became second in the all-around and went to the European Championships in Prague, where she narrowly lost to Nadia Comaneci in the individual competition and won three gold medals on individual apparatuses, impressing judges and spectators with her high technique. It was in the Czech Republic that Mukhina first performed the most difficult element that was later named after her.
From the memories of Nellie Kim: "We arrived in Strasbourg with the following team: Elena Mukhina, Maria Filatova, Natalia Shaposhnikova, Tatiana Arzhannikova, Svetlana Agapova, and me. And this team became the 'golden' team! But Elena Mukhina became the absolute champion - a true champion, without any reservations. The most difficult program, virtuosity, softness, femininity... We returned to Moscow - October, autumn, cold, but we all had spring in our hearts and smiles on our faces. But, of course, Mukhina and Andrianov were greeted especially ceremoniously - they were the absolute champions."
...Mukhina's coach, Mikhail Klimenko, has long settled in Italy. It is not for me to judge a person who has prepared many outstanding gymnasts. But once he said such a phrase to his ward: "They will leave you alone only when you crash on the podium." Of course, he meant something completely different...
Formally, Elena is not considered an Olympian. But to be confined to a bed for 23 years, not lose heart, and continue to live at all costs, aware of the tragedy of her situation, can only be done by real champion Olympians.
And one more thing. Today, almost all of Mukhina's former teammates from the national team live abroad - in the United States, Canada, France. They, healthy, turned out to be unnecessary in their homeland. And the paralyzed world champion is even less needed by her country, although it was for the sake of her country that she took that fatal jump 23 years ago...
P.S. Elena Mukhina's daily routine has remained unchanged for many years. She wakes up, performs specific exercises, reads, watches television (the only thread connecting her to the outside world). Elena Vyacheslavovna prefers not to dwell on the events of 23 years ago. And so we did not consider it necessary to remind her of the past. We considered it necessary to remind everyone about her - Elena Mukhina, the pride of our country.