Tatiana Gutsu

Tatiana Gutsu Тетяна Ґуцу
— Gymnast —
Full name	Tatiana Gutsu
Country represented	Ukraine
Former countries represented	Unified Team  Soviet Union
Born	September 5, 1976 Odessa, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Residence	United States
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Medal record Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 2 1 1 World Championships 1 2 0 European Championships 3 1 1 Representing  Unified Team Olympic Games 1992 Barcelona Team 1992 Barcelona All-Around 1992 Barcelona Uneven Bars 1992 Barcelona Floor Exercise Representing  Soviet Union World Championships 1991 Indianapolis Team 1991 Indianapolis Uneven Bars 1991 Indianapolis Balance Beam Representing  Ukraine European Championships 1992 Nantes All-Around 1992 Nantes Vault 1992 Nantes Uneven Bars 1992 Nantes Balance Beam 1992 Nantes Floor Exercise

Tatiana Gutsu (Ukrainian: Тетяна Костянтинівна Ґуцу, Romanian: Тatiana Guţu; born September 5, 1976 in Odessa, Ukrainian SSR) is a Ukrainian (and former Soviet) gymnast, winner of the 1992 Olympic all-around title. Renowned as a trickster, the routines she performed were some of the most difficult ever in the sport. Fifteen years after her debut, few Olympic gymnasts perform beam and floor routines as difficult as hers.

Career

Born into a Ukrainian family of Moldovan descent, Gutsu first started in gymnastics at age 6. She became a member of the national team of the Soviet Union in 1988. Her first major international competition was the 1991 World Championships in Indianapolis, where she won the team title with the Soviet Union and finished fifth in the individual all-around, while winning silver medals in two individual apparatus finals - the bars and beam. Her silver on beam was highly controversial, and she is considered to have been robbed of the gold medal to Boginskaya's far simpler routine. Here, she was noticed for her difficulty, as one of the first gymnasts in the world to perform a double twisting Yurchenko vault. She also debuted a double layout somersault on floor with split leg in the first salto. Very few others have been able to compete this move. Perhaps most impressively, she ended her floor routine in the team competition with a double layout somersault.

Gutsu had a disastrous showing at the 1992 Event finals World Championships, where she had been expected to contend for gold on all her events- uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise, but failed to reach the finals of any, and suffered falls on both the bars and floor. She recovered, though, and at the European Gymnastics Championships, Gutsu won the all-around, vault, and uneven bars at the European Championships, as well as a silver on the balance beam. She was the most successful gymnasts of the championship and clearly established herself as one of the favorites for the Olympic all-around title.

1992 Olympics

However, the 15-year-old Gutsu almost missed the final of that event. In the Olympic preliminaries, Gutsu fell from the balance beam, qualifying 9th all-around. She had been on course to win the optional portion of the team competition, and was also one of the favourites for the beam gold medal, but the fall meant she did not qualify.

Although 36 gymnasts qualified for the all-around, only 3 competitors from each country were allowed in the final, and because of Gutsu's fall, three other competitors from the Unified Team had already placed higher. However, the team coaches felt that Gutsu had a better chance of bringing home all-around gold than her teammates Svetlana Boginskaya and Rozalia Galiyeva. They considered scratching Boginskaya, but felt that she was too famous and there would be a scandal. As a result, they forced Gutsu's younger teammate Galiyeva to forfeit her place in the final so that Gutsu could compete. Galiyeva was forced to claim a severe knee injury, and this was 'verified' by the team physician.

In one of the deepest fields ever for the all-around, Gutsu was in a close race for the gold medal. None of the problems from qualifying were repeated, as she went through her difficult sets without major errors. She had a few balance check in her difficult beam routine, and made a somewhat substantial error on her double layout on floor, allowing her rivals who performed cleanly to stay in contention with her. Most of the other contenders also avoided mistakes, but with one apparatus to go, Gutsu was tied for first place. Her final performance on vault (a full-twisting layout Yurchenko) was just enough to hold off the challenge of American Shannon Miller- Gutsu won the title by .012, which still remains the closest margin of victory ever in Olympic history. In a very successful Olympic campaign, she also took home additional medals in the team competition (gold), uneven bars (silver) and floor exercise (bronze).

What set Gutsu apart from Shannon Miller was her difficulty - she was competing during the height of the 'pixie' era when the favoured type of gymnast was a small athlete capable of extreme difficulty, and Gutsu exemplified this. In Barcelona, Gutsu used the same vault as most other leading gymnasts (except Tatiana Lysenko) but her difficulty on the other three exercises was high. Beam was especially notable - she showed probably the most difficult dismount sequence of all time, three back handsprings into a tucked full-in. She also used a standing tucked full back somersault. On floor, Gutsu's opening pass was a split leg double layout, closing with a piked full-in. On bars, she dismounted with a double layout. Miller, in contrast, showed comparatively less difficulty, on the floor exercise in particular (whip to tucked full-in for her mount, a whip to double pike for her middle pass, and a tucked full-in for her dismount.), but was extremely impressive with her flip flop to three layouts sequence on beam, superior form, and a stuck full-in dismount.

Galiyeva was always angry and bitter about having given up her place to Gutsu, feeling that she had had no option but to agree. The two split the prize money between them, but they stopped speaking after the Olympics. The substitution was against the rules (as Galiyeva's injury was not genuine), but such switches were and are common in gymnastics, usually when a gymnast considered to be the best on the team makes a mistake in qualifications and thus finishes behind another, apparently weaker teammate. Other notable examples include the replacement of Alexandra Marinescu for Simona Amânar in the 1996 Olympics, and the Soviet coaches removal of Olga Mostepanova and Irina Baraksanova for Elena Shushunova and Oksana Omelianchik in the 1985 world championships. On both occasions, the gymnasts substituted in took a medal. Coaches now have the right to make such substitutions without having to falsify injuries.

After retiring from competitive gymnastics, Gutsu moved to the United States, where she now is a gymnastics coach and has U.S. citizenship. Gutsu tried for a comeback to compete at the 2003 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships as a three-event specialist (vault, beam and floor) but was unsuccessful.

Competitive history

Year	Event	Team	AA	VT	UB	BB	FX
1991	World Championships	1st	5th		2nd	2nd
1992	European Championships		1st	1st	1st	2nd	3rd
	World Championships
	Olympic Games	1st	1st		2nd		3rd

• Competitor for CIS

Year	Competition Description	Location	Apparatus	Rank-Final	Score-Final	Rank-Qualifying	Score-Qualifying
1992	Olympic Games	Barcelona	Team	1	395.666
			All-Around	1	39.737	9	78.848
			Vault			9	19.787
			Uneven Bars	2	9.975	1	19.899
			Balance Beam			37	19.312
			Floor Exercise	3	9.912	5	19.850
	World Championships	Paris	Balance Beam	WD
			Balance Beam (Semi−Final)			3	9.875
			Balance Beam (Qualification)			1	9.937

• Competitor for Ukraine

Year	Competition Description	Location	Apparatus	Rank-Final	Score-Final	Rank-Qualifying	Score-Qualifying
1992	European Championships	Nantes	All-Around	1	39.725
			Vault	1	9.950	4	9.900
			Uneven Bars	1	9.937	1	9.950
			Balance Beam	2	9.900	2	9.925
			Floor Exercise	3	9.887	1	9.950

• Competitor for Soviet Union

Year	Competition Description	Location	Apparatus	Rank-Final	Score-Final	Rank-Qualifying	Score-Qualifying
1991	World Championships	Indianapolis	Team	1	396.055
			All-Around	5	39.636	3	79.298
			Vault			7	19.750
			Uneven Bars	2	9.950	3	19.875
			Balance Beam	2	9.950	5	19.849
			Floor Exercise			6	19.824

External links

• Tatiana Gutsu at the International Federation of Gymnastics
• Whatever happened to Tatiana Gutsu?
• All Things Tatiana - A tribute website to Tatiana Gutsu
• 2008 Video of Gutsu coaching in the US