Olympic great Chusovitina, 50, wins World Challenge Cup silver
Uzbekistan's Oksana Chusovitina marked her 50th birthday with a silver medal at the Gymnastics World Challenge Cup - 33 years after she became an Olympic champion.Chusovitina was part of a Unified Team of athletes from post-Soviet nations that won the team all-around gold at the 1992 Barcelona Games, and has competed at eight Olympics in total.Three decades later the Uzbek, who is also a three-time world champion, is still winning medals in a sport in which most retire in their twenties.Competing in her native country at the International Gymnastics Federation's World Challenge Cup in Tashkent one day after her birthday, Chusovitina took silver behind Bulgaria's Valentina Georgieva - who, at 18, is 32 years her junior.Until Paris 2024, Chusovitina had competed at every summer Olympic Games since 1992.She was looking to equal the record - set by Georgian shooter Nino Salukvadze, who is the only Olympian to have competed in nine consecutive Games - for most Olympic appearances in a row last year in Paris.However, injury ruled her out of the Asian Championships, meaning she was unable to qualify.
'I just decided to save myself for the competition'
Chusovitina was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2017, and eight years later she remains the only member to still be competing after their induction.She had made it clear in February that she was targeting her home World Cup. "In June, on my 50th birthday, we will have a competition here in Tashkent. It will be a World Challenge Cup, and I really want to compete there so I'm keeping my fingers crossed," she said. Earlier this month she withdrew from the Asian Championships during the final of the vault in order to ensure she could compete in Tashkent.
'Why should I leave the sport if it brings me joy?'
After her team gold in Barcelona, she represented Uzbekistan at the next three Games but, after moving to Germany when her son was diagnosed with leukaemia, she gained citizenship and switched allegiances.Her second Olympic medal was a silver in the vault while representing Germany at the 2008 Beijing Games.She represented Germany at the 2012 Games in London then switched back to Uzbekistan for the 2016 Rio Olympics - and qualified for the delayed Games in Tokyo in 2021.Chusovitina did briefly retire after the Tokyo Games, but returned to the sport just 67 days later.Speaking about the decision in 2023, she said: "I just realised, I felt that I can do this. Why should I leave the sport if it brings me joy?".Previously this season she had won gold at the Baku World Cup and bronze at the Cottbus World Cup.By the time athletes head out to the United States for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, Chusovitina will be 53 years of age, but she has not ruled out a ninth trip to the Olympics."My number one goal is to get to Los Angeles," she said before this week's competition. "But there is so much time before then, so I'm not thinking that far ahead. I go step by step, from one competition to the next. If it happens, it happens. If not, then no. But I will try, and I will give it everything I've got."
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The Herald Scotland
15 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
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The Independent
15 hours ago
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The Guardian
a day ago
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IOC's Kirsty Coventry announces ‘scientific approach' to protect ‘female category'
Kirsty Coventry has said there is now 'overwhelming support' among International Olympic Committee members to protect the female category in a significant shift in its gender eligibility policy. Coventry, who was chairing her first meetings as the IOC's new president, said that a taskforce of scientists and international federations would be set up within weeks to come up with a new policy. It follows the controversy around the Paris 2024 boxing tournament after two athletes – Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting – won gold medals despite having been disqualified from the previous year's World Championships for allegedly failing to meet gender eligibility criteria. World Boxing, which has since been recognised by the IOC as the sport's international federation, has introduced mandatory sex testing and said Khelif would not be able to compete in the female category until she undergoes the test. Khelif has always insisted she was born a woman, has lived as a woman and has competed as a woman. The IOC faced criticism for its handling of the row in Paris and for a perceived failure to lead on this issue more widely. Coventry indicated that the IOC would not revisit the allocation of medals from Paris and said the organisation wanted to 'look forward' and not back. Announcing the shift in policy, Coventry said: 'There was overwhelming support that we should protect the female category. And with that, we will set up a working group made up of experts and international federations. 'It was agreed by the members that the IOC should take a leading role in this,' she added. 'And that we should be the ones to bring together the experts and the international federations and ensure that we find consensus. 'We understand that there will be differences depending on the sports. But it was fully agreed that as members that, as the IOC, we should make the effort to place emphasis on protection of the female category.' Coventry's remarks followed two days of 'Pause and Reflect' workshops in Lausanne, where the new IOC president spoke to members about their concerns and how to push the organisation forward. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion 'It was very clear from the members that we have to protect the female category, first and foremost,' she said. 'We have to do that to ensure fairness. And we have to do it with a scientific approach. And with the inclusion of the international federations who have done a lot of work in that area.' The new policy is expected to ban transgender and athletes with a difference of sex development from competing in the female category. However Coventry was clear there would be no changes to results of previous Olympics. 'We are not going to be doing anything retrospectively,' she said. 'We are going to be looking forward. From the members that were here, it was 'what are we learning from the past and how are we going to leverage that and move that forward to the future'.'
