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| Tatyana Gutsu | ||||||||||||||||||
| Back | ||||||||||||||||||
| Tatiana Constantinovna Gutsu was born on September 5, 1976. Tanya grew up in a small apartment in Odessa, Ukraine, in the Soviet Union. She was very close with her three sisters: Ira, who is four years older than her; Olga, who is four years younger; and Marina, eleven years younger. | ||||||||||||||||||
| At the age of five, Tatiana, like many other 5-year-olds, attended kindergarten. In the Soviet Union, gymnastics coaches often went to kindergartens and select children that they felt have the potential to become stars. Victor Dikii was one of these coaches. He eventually saw a young, blonde-haired, blue-eyed little dynamo named Tatiana Gutsu. So, he selected her along with many other children to do gymnastics. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Eventually, Tatiana was chosen to train at the prestigious Lake Krugloye (Round Lake) Training Center. This was the national training center in the USSR, located a few miles outside of Moscow, Russia. Elena Gutsu, Tatiana's mother, was reluctant to let her go because Tatiana was still young, and she would only get to see her family a few times each year. After some discussion from the coach, however, she allowed Tatiana to go. Her family was rewarded for sacrificing their daughter to the State: they were given a large apartment overlooking the sea. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Coaches and teammates at Krugloye saw her potential because of her high level of difficulty. Coaches began to train her for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Tatiana was on the Soviet junior team. Although she had competed in a few scattered meets in 1989, she began to shine in 1990. | ||||||||||||||||||
| That year, she won first place in the Junior European, one of the bigger junior events. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Based on her performance in the Europeans, Tatiana became a lock for the 1992 Olympic team, and many picked her as their favorite to win the '92 Olympics in Barcelona. | ||||||||||||||||||
| In the Olympics, only the top three would advance to the all-around. Unfortunately, she fell off the beam in the team optionals, and ended up with the disappointed 4th place while, in the arms of teammate Boginskaya, she cried. Her team, the historic Unified Team (Boginskaya, Lysenko, Grudneva, Galieva, Chusovitina, Gutsu), did, however, win their 10th and final gold medal. | ||||||||||||||||||
| In the all-around competition, many were surprised to see Gutsu there because she did not qualify for the AA competition. Apparently, the coaches said that Roza Galieva injured her knee, so they had to pull her out. Tatiana took her place. It was a close battle, and Tatiana won the gold medal over Shannon Miller by an extremely narrow margin of .012 (39.737 vs. 39.725), becoming the first Olympic Champion to represent her home country of Ukraine. Later, it became known that Roza was not really injured. Because of this fact, Tatiana's first place finish was controversial. | ||||||||||||||||||
| In the event finals, Tatiana won 2 more medals: a silver on Bars, and a bronze on Floor. This would be her last major competition. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Following the Olympics, Tatiana went on tour to do exhibitions (mostly in the US) with other gymnasts like Miller, Zmeskal, Boginskaya, Misiutin, Scherbo... In these shows, Tatiana performed individual and group routines, plus a duet (the '92 compulsory floor routine) with Shannon Miller, a gymnast that many compared to Tatiana. | ||||||||||||||||||
| After a few rough years, Tatiana moved to the United States where she now lives, and coaches at various gyms in America. | ||||||||||||||||||