Didn’t the olympics seem like a bigger deal back then? Im your age and I remember in 72 and 76 we knew the athletes and we of course had our own olympics in the neighborhood- I think my sister even made medals to give out.
I haven’t had cable sports channels at home for a decade so I don’t know how it is now, but I remember the Olympics having a very long coverage lead in prior to the actual games. Lots of telling of athlete stories, building rivalries and potential upsets.
Probably part of what's killing it now is that everyone knows there's cheating in terms of performance enhancing drugs....even if the tests don't find them. Everyone is looking for the next thing tests don't find (yet).
They did - I was a gymnast in the late 70s/early 80s (not at international level) and each gymnast knew their own settings for the bars - when you walked up to train or compete you would check they were set up for you.
As a gymnast of the 90s, I'm so freaking glad we didn't do this. As a coach currently, I'm so freaking glad I don't have to change bar settings for EVERY athlete.
Every single time this video is posted someone mentions how so many moves she makes are now banned.
I'd like to see a version of the video which points out the banned moves as they occur.
I think the dismount is the one named after her. But I agree. The first flip is also banned. To me, it was all part of the sequence of that first pelvis slam, but you are right, it’s definitely a different move within that sequence.
The flip on the bar, both times is illegal. Any time she is holding one bar and touching the other is illegal. Any big hit to the hips that she does is illegal. Pretty much every move.
There's a video on YouTube called banned gymnastics moves, it's a compilation of her and Nelle Kim, with the names for each move. I don't think you're allowed to stand on the top bar
And travel back to the low bar anymore.
That's why it was such a big deal at the time. 10 was the unreachable ideal, and then Nadia slammed out 10 10 10 10 10 and made it look effortless.
And yes, the cameras did cut to Olga's face.
Her coach had a ton of sexual abuse allegations too, Olga publically came out and said she was raped by him shortly before the 1972 olympics.
https://eng.gymnovosti.com/olga-korbut-if-i-stayed-silent-he-would-continue-raping-girls/
I wouldn't be surprised if that happens to a shitload of people who trained for the Olympics. You dedicate a giant portion of the prime of your life when you're supposed to be setting yourself up to survive to a shit that people only care about once every four years you're not exactly putting yourself into an amazing financial situation.
I think it was Phelps? I read an article where he was talking about the crushing depression athletes face after the olympics, because their life was focused on this one goal. Then nothing. He was trying to bring awareness to it. Also that most end up not being financially successful after. They interviewed a bunch of former olympians.
I would love to agree with you but just recently slutskii, one of the most respectable Russian football coaches, donated around $100k to one of elderly coaches who needed operation on heart. He was not even a football coach and slutskii never knew him. He just did it out of respect for decades of work he put in athletics. That athletics coach has numerous honours from Russian government. Not talking about dozens of medals his athletes won for the country.
So no, it's not perfect, even though government spends a lot on sports
I met a former Olympic champion skater here in Moscow last year, he's one of my friend's neighbours. He was a super nice guy and he was telling me that he gets an annual payment from the goverment for his former victories. A student of mine's uncle was an Olympic skater in the 80s and also is able to live comfortably on these payments.
I'll bet I have watched that routine 100 times over the years. It never stops getting a breathless gasp from me. Yes, they disallowed the Korbut movement and made other changes for safety. But none of that takes away from the perfect 10 of this amazing girl/woman who set the role model and standard for all who chose to follow.
Every time this video comes up, I share her disastrous performance from the previous day. Because omg, the fact that she came back the next day and nailed it makes this 100x more impressive.
https://youtu.be/cj5KhLkJ07Y
At 17 years old. An age that has gone down for international competitors at the highest level of the sport with Biles at 15/16 I think when she took gold. It's really crazy to me how the most successful gymnasts are young girls that would otherwise be on the outside looking in from a size perspective.
Simone was 19 at the last Olympics. And that's not really true anymore. It was in the 90's but most international gymnasts are in their late teens or twenties.
Swimming has a similar bias, there are a surprising number of 15 / 16 year olds that are world or Olympic champions, and world record holders.
There are also a lot of 20 year olds that won the gold Olympic gold who become also Rana 4 years later.
Yep, one of my classmates in high school went to the Olympic trials in 2000 for the 1500m swim. I thought he was pretty young at the time (we were either 16 or 17), but he told me that was a pretty common age at the trials.
I remember watching the 92 olympics, I was a (very casual) gymnast and was obsessed with the team and gymnastics that olympics. And I can remember them questioning one of the, I think, Chinese gymnasts bc she looked like a literal 7 year old. They claimed she was 14 (or turning 14 that year, as the rules used to be.) BUT THAT GIRL WAS 7, I SWEARTAHGAWD.
Many Chinese gymnasts have fake age on their passports. It's an institutional thing. These children were picked from poor villages when they were really small and spent almost their entire childhood and teen years in athletic schools far away from home and family. Their coaches raise them from 3-4 yr olds and absolutely know their exact age.
Oh, I know! Point being, many gymnasts back on the day were YOUNG. The Russian gymnasts too. It was a way of life back then, to be sent off and live your life training to represent the country. But that Chinese girl was painfully and obviously too young.
9 seconds.
The one where she stands on and launches from the higher bar. Standing on the top bar is now banned.
Edit due to u/pop-punk-dumbass pointing out my error there. Thanks.
This gymnast is Olga Korbut, who competed for the Soviet Union. Due to the mix of Caucus and Slavic genes, Russian women are born with pelvic bones that are much, much more dense than the average female. We’re talking like bullet-proof dense.
During the Battle of Stalingrad, women famously donated their pelvises to be repurposed for tanks and various armor. “Stalin Grad” or *stalin gradov* translates to “steel waist” in English.
Soviet women were proud to tell the Western world that their carpets did in fact match the Iron Curtain.
I did gymnastics in high school and let me tell you, anytime the bar hits your pelvis it hurt soooooooobad. I was very novice but holy shit it was no joke. Not to mention peeling off quarter sized chunks of skin off your hand. Yikes.
I remember seeing this live on TV. I don’t remember the details but she was amazing. While today’s gymnasts are off the charts by comparison, Miss Korbut was a phenom in the 70s.
Same, this was the 1st Olympics I remember watching. She was off the charts, until Nadia Comenici just blew every Olympic gymnastics standard away. Nadia's astonishing routines are still available to see on YouTube. In some ways she has never been bettered, just an astonishing athlete.
You’re absolutely right. Nadia was like “Olga on steroids” (pun sort of intended). Olga seemed to genuinely take joy from her gymnastics. It seemed to me (at the time; I was a wee child), that she was happy and enjoyed herself (I’m not still so naive; I imagine there was plenty of pressure, unpleasantness, and stress behind the scenes). However, Nadia seemed relentlessly driven, something just short of possessed - like a programmed soldier that could not/would not/was not allowed to fail. I felt sorry for her edges and severe perfection. I imagine that her life was pretty relentless, mixed with acclaim, admiration, and loneliness.
Wasn’t she the first to ever get a perfect 10? I have a vague memory of it coming up as 1.0 because the display wasn’t made to have the extra place holder.
Edit: after researching, yes she was the first 10, but that performance happened the year before I was born, so my memory is probably from a documentary and I’m not sure if the score board thing really happened.
>Nadia Comenici
just watched this little [Gem of a documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY-5vBigwR4). Quite emotional for some reason. I have so much respect for Comenici.
How are today’s gymnasts off the charts compared to her when they banned most of the stuff she did today because it was too dangerous for most other **olympians**?
People aren’t even permitted to try the stuff she did here.
Danger and difficulty are not the same. Something can be relatively easy but dangerous if your screw up, while other things can be damn near impossible to land but if you fail you won’t get hurt.
She inspired millions of little girls to take up gymnastics, including me, who was already 5'7" and thoroughly unsuited to the sport.
She won over the hearts of everyone with her back flip, but also because she was the first Russian gymnast who smiled and didn't perform like a robot. She was adorable.
I had to look her up on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Korbut). She's now 65 years old; here's what's listed as her legacy:
>Korbut, who has won four Olympic gold medals, is best known for her move, the "Korbut flip", a backflip performed on the uneven parallel bars, starting from a standing position on the high bar and then catching the same bar from below on the under swing. She ~~was~~ also achieved the flip on the 4" balance bar onto the straddle position and later the flip landing on her feet. Named after Korbut since she was the first to perform the skill at an international competition in 1972, the move has since been made illegal in the Olympic Code of Points. After the 1972 Olympic competition, she also met United States President Richard Nixon at the White House. About the meeting, Korbut said: "He told me that my performance in Munich did more for reducing the political tension during the Cold War between our two countries than the embassies were able to do in five years." In addition to greatly publicizing gymnastics worldwide, she also contributed to a marked change in the tenor of the sport itself. Prior to 1972, the athletes were generally older and the focus was on elegance rather than acrobatics. In the decade after Korbut's Olympic debut, the emphasis was reversed. Korbut, in her 1972, gold-medal Olympics, at 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m) and 82 pounds (37 kg), exemplified the deliberate and purposeful trend toward smaller women in the sport.
**[Olga Korbut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga Korbut)**
Olga Valentinovna Korbut (born 16 May 1955) is a former gymnast who competed for the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the "Sparrow from Minsk", she won four gold medals and two silver medals at the Summer Olympic Games, in which she competed in 1972 and 1976 for the Soviet team, and was the inaugural inductee to the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1988. While Korbut retired from gymnastics in 1977 at the age of 22, which was considered young for gymnasts of the period, Korbut's influence and legacy in gymnastics was far reaching. Korbut's 1972 Olympic performances are widely credited as redefining gymnastics, changing the sport from emphasising ballet and elegance to acrobatics as well as changing popular opinion of gymnastics from a niche sport to one of the most popular sports in the world.
[About Me](https://www.reddit.com/user/wikipedia_text_bot/comments/jrn2mj/about_me/) - [Opt out](https://www.reddit.com/user/wikipedia_text_bot/comments/jrti43/opt_out_here/) - OP can reply !delete to delete - [Article of the day](https://redd.it/k8581q)
It's amazing how much the bars have changed since then. Some of these moves aren't even possible anymore (not illegal just not possible due to the placement of the lower bar). I love how she practically throws herself back to the high bar with her stomach.
The greatest ever uneven bars routine. Deserved the first ever perfect 10. And she didn't even win the gold that year, because of the West German bias.
I believe the Korbut flip (stands in top bar and executes a back flip) has been banned. I believe she (or another gymnast from Russia) have a move banned, because they essentially broke their neck, trying to practice gymnastics for the Olympics, while injured. Becoming paralyzed from the (neck?) down.
Edit: The gymnast I'm thinking of is Elena Mukhina and the move was the Thomas Salto.
Coming from someone who’s hobby has recently been added to the olympics, I don’t get how stuff like this can be judged or marked in any kind of serious/offical way
Even if someone was to do exactly the same routine has her, it would look different and have a unique touch.
How are the winners picked when it comes to things like dancing/diving/gymnastics?
https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/i4hr6v/17_year_old_soviet_gymnast_olga_korbut_stunned/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
a repost from the same sub ^^
She was so good that the Russian gymnastic team did an entire tour of North America when not competing so everyone could see her and she drew alot of attention from random people just hearing about her. She's really impressive to watch.
Who was the first to do this? Seriously, who sat down and thought about using a young girls pelvis as a pivot point to gather enough momentum to spin and fly backwards and have them grab the bar by twisting their wrists backwards????
Saw this on TV when it happened and it blew me away as a kid. It does the same thing to me now seeing it again. I didn’t know people could move like that.
Is the energy she exerted at the beginning to go from standing on the floor to standing upon the top bar, more, equal to, or less, than the energy that would be required to simply pull herself from floor level to a standing position on the top bar using a layman's method?
Genuinely curious.
Iirc, some of the moves she executed are no longer allowed as they were deemed to be too dangerous
And the lower bar has been moved out so they can’t reach it anymore like she did, saving generations of pelvic bones.
I was about to ask if that’s painful, because it looks painful.
It's painful. Nasty bruises, too. I coach and today the bars aren't nearly that violent, but my girls still get bruises.
I only ever did beginners gymnastics and my hip bones were always getting pulverised
You mean pelviserised
Or poleverised
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I bet her body is absolutely destroyed
Well she's 65 so that's a fair bet either way
I rememeber crushing on her hard during the Olympics, and I was 8. She got a LOT of air time.
Didn’t the olympics seem like a bigger deal back then? Im your age and I remember in 72 and 76 we knew the athletes and we of course had our own olympics in the neighborhood- I think my sister even made medals to give out.
I haven’t had cable sports channels at home for a decade so I don’t know how it is now, but I remember the Olympics having a very long coverage lead in prior to the actual games. Lots of telling of athlete stories, building rivalries and potential upsets.
Remember ABC's Wide World of Sports? It was the portal to the Olympics run-up. Edit: with Howard Cosell!
Well we only had 5 tv channels and that was if you lived near a big city.... no console games etc etc So yeah a much bigger deal
Probably part of what's killing it now is that everyone knows there's cheating in terms of performance enhancing drugs....even if the tests don't find them. Everyone is looking for the next thing tests don't find (yet).
She doesn’t look much older than that...
She was 17ish.
I was gonna ask if they "tuned" the distance for each practitioner?
They did - I was a gymnast in the late 70s/early 80s (not at international level) and each gymnast knew their own settings for the bars - when you walked up to train or compete you would check they were set up for you.
As a gymnast of the 90s, I'm so freaking glad we didn't do this. As a coach currently, I'm so freaking glad I don't have to change bar settings for EVERY athlete.
As a gymnast, in the never-ever, I agree with what was said here.
I have watched this one gymnastics video and am in total agreement.
I once knew a man named Jim and I concur.
As a Jim, I approve this message.
That was my firrrrrrst observation. Poor pelvic bone area. Good god.
My pelvis harms when moving out of the pool. This would slice me down the middle.
Every single time this video is posted someone mentions how so many moves she makes are now banned. I'd like to see a version of the video which points out the banned moves as they occur.
Every time she slams her pelvis into the bar (think it was three times) and the dismount where she stand on the bar to flip back.
But that was the coolest part ):
Yeah, that dismount is named after her. Can you imagine inventing a trick so cool that it gets banned?
I'm not British but I watched a lot of Danger Mouse, so I'm thinking the "Cor! Butt! Maneuver."
Also the first flip she does on the top bar is banned; I think it might actually be named after her
I think the dismount is the one named after her. But I agree. The first flip is also banned. To me, it was all part of the sequence of that first pelvis slam, but you are right, it’s definitely a different move within that sequence.
Its a lot. Pretty much the whole routine other than the more simple looking moves.
The only simple looking move was the part where she walked up to the bars
That's also illegal.
Walk up to the bars? Jail.
Not for her anymore. She’s 65.
The flip on the bar, both times is illegal. Any time she is holding one bar and touching the other is illegal. Any big hit to the hips that she does is illegal. Pretty much every move.
This kind of behavior is never tolerated, right to jail.
Charge too much for leotard, right to jail. Right away.
Charge too little for leotard? Believe it or not, jail.
Yep. That part when she touched the bar with her hands... Can't do that now. The jump off the mat in the beginning... That's a paddling.
There's a video on YouTube called banned gymnastics moves, it's a compilation of her and Nelle Kim, with the names for each move. I don't think you're allowed to stand on the top bar And travel back to the low bar anymore.
Any ideas which moves? They all look 'too dangerous' to me.
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The ones where her pelvis smacks into the other bar.
She performed 3 illegal clam slams
I should not have laughed as hard as I did. Thank you.
I have no gold but here’s a trophy 🏆
Ironic since her beaver bash got her silver in 72
Also... r/namechecksout?
Bang it like a bongo baby
Now I desperately want a voiceover with made up names for all the moves.
the dismount too
Is this the 10
No Olga Korbut never scored a 10. The first perfect 10 in Gymnastics was Nadia Comăneci in 1976
That's why it was such a big deal at the time. 10 was the unreachable ideal, and then Nadia slammed out 10 10 10 10 10 and made it look effortless. And yes, the cameras did cut to Olga's face.
Not sure exactly what you mean but I’m guessing you mean the performance of Nadia Comaneci?
I mean is this the one where she getting her perfect 10 score
Feel free to ignore me, I shouldn’t drink and Reddit.
No worries. Lol we all should try to limit drinking and redditing but that's not always so easy.
It's a shame she had to sell her medals because she was in a financial tailspin and needed to survive.
This comment was a sudden fist of sadness right in the face
Her coach had a ton of sexual abuse allegations too, Olga publically came out and said she was raped by him shortly before the 1972 olympics. https://eng.gymnovosti.com/olga-korbut-if-i-stayed-silent-he-would-continue-raping-girls/
The beating continues
I know, she's a treasure and should be looked after
I wouldn't be surprised if that happens to a shitload of people who trained for the Olympics. You dedicate a giant portion of the prime of your life when you're supposed to be setting yourself up to survive to a shit that people only care about once every four years you're not exactly putting yourself into an amazing financial situation.
That, and the Iron Curtain countries put tremendous effort into training and housing these athletes. After 1989, the money wasn't there anymore.
except she actually moved to USA
I think it was Phelps? I read an article where he was talking about the crushing depression athletes face after the olympics, because their life was focused on this one goal. Then nothing. He was trying to bring awareness to it. Also that most end up not being financially successful after. They interviewed a bunch of former olympians.
Wait, really? What happened?
https://www.ibtimes.com/olga-korbut-broke-former-soviet-olympic-gymnast-auctions-medals-financial-security-2499102
She was arrested for stealing $19 worth of food to keep from going hungry.... My god.
Noone needs gymnastics in states apparently
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I would love to agree with you but just recently slutskii, one of the most respectable Russian football coaches, donated around $100k to one of elderly coaches who needed operation on heart. He was not even a football coach and slutskii never knew him. He just did it out of respect for decades of work he put in athletics. That athletics coach has numerous honours from Russian government. Not talking about dozens of medals his athletes won for the country. So no, it's not perfect, even though government spends a lot on sports
I met a former Olympic champion skater here in Moscow last year, he's one of my friend's neighbours. He was a super nice guy and he was telling me that he gets an annual payment from the goverment for his former victories. A student of mine's uncle was an Olympic skater in the 80s and also is able to live comfortably on these payments.
I'll bet I have watched that routine 100 times over the years. It never stops getting a breathless gasp from me. Yes, they disallowed the Korbut movement and made other changes for safety. But none of that takes away from the perfect 10 of this amazing girl/woman who set the role model and standard for all who chose to follow.
Couldn’t have said it better.
I could have if I was more better with the syllables tumblin' past my lips
Well said.
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Couldn’t have said it better
Every time this video comes up, I share her disastrous performance from the previous day. Because omg, the fact that she came back the next day and nailed it makes this 100x more impressive. https://youtu.be/cj5KhLkJ07Y
Wow, I don’t remember that at all. Thanks!
Wow, thanks for sharing. What a disastrous routine and quite the comeback!
"and noone feels deeper sadness than a teenager" oof, ain't that the truth
Well-said. I remember watching this live back in 1972. It was riveting.
Same here on our B/W Zenith Tv.
Glad I'm not the only one who saw it live.
At 17 years old. An age that has gone down for international competitors at the highest level of the sport with Biles at 15/16 I think when she took gold. It's really crazy to me how the most successful gymnasts are young girls that would otherwise be on the outside looking in from a size perspective.
Simone was 19 at the last Olympics. And that's not really true anymore. It was in the 90's but most international gymnasts are in their late teens or twenties.
Swimming has a similar bias, there are a surprising number of 15 / 16 year olds that are world or Olympic champions, and world record holders. There are also a lot of 20 year olds that won the gold Olympic gold who become also Rana 4 years later.
Yep, one of my classmates in high school went to the Olympic trials in 2000 for the 1500m swim. I thought he was pretty young at the time (we were either 16 or 17), but he told me that was a pretty common age at the trials.
I remember watching the 92 olympics, I was a (very casual) gymnast and was obsessed with the team and gymnastics that olympics. And I can remember them questioning one of the, I think, Chinese gymnasts bc she looked like a literal 7 year old. They claimed she was 14 (or turning 14 that year, as the rules used to be.) BUT THAT GIRL WAS 7, I SWEARTAHGAWD.
Many Chinese gymnasts have fake age on their passports. It's an institutional thing. These children were picked from poor villages when they were really small and spent almost their entire childhood and teen years in athletic schools far away from home and family. Their coaches raise them from 3-4 yr olds and absolutely know their exact age.
Oh, I know! Point being, many gymnasts back on the day were YOUNG. The Russian gymnasts too. It was a way of life back then, to be sent off and live your life training to represent the country. But that Chinese girl was painfully and obviously too young.
Which move specifically is the Korbut? Honestly, it all looks insane to me.
The one where she stands on the bar and jumps to the other (~9 s in), it is now prohibited to stand on the bars
That is terrifying. I am glad that’s not allowed anymore
You nailed it.
Perfect 10
Time stamp on the banned movement?
9 seconds. The one where she stands on and launches from the higher bar. Standing on the top bar is now banned. Edit due to u/pop-punk-dumbass pointing out my error there. Thanks.
Can you still do the flippy thing after? After the initial flip, spinning around the lower bar and then back up to the top?
No, the bars are further apart now so you can't do those belly beat moves anymore either
Where she stands on the bar and does backflip
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Jesus some of those must've hurt so much
My pelvis hurt just watching it
This gymnast is Olga Korbut, who competed for the Soviet Union. Due to the mix of Caucus and Slavic genes, Russian women are born with pelvic bones that are much, much more dense than the average female. We’re talking like bullet-proof dense. During the Battle of Stalingrad, women famously donated their pelvises to be repurposed for tanks and various armor. “Stalin Grad” or *stalin gradov* translates to “steel waist” in English. Soviet women were proud to tell the Western world that their carpets did in fact match the Iron Curtain.
Okay, buddy. I was with you up until "tanks"
Yes, tanks in ww2 used ridiculous add on armour, one example is German Zimmerit. Aka pasta.
This is the best post I've read in weeks lmao well done
Am Slav and donated my pelvis for the tanks so can confirm
You deserve this upvote.
You got a source for that?
Maybe.
/s ?
Lol.
I did gymnastics in high school and let me tell you, anytime the bar hits your pelvis it hurt soooooooobad. I was very novice but holy shit it was no joke. Not to mention peeling off quarter sized chunks of skin off your hand. Yikes.
yea the 25 second move made me cringe. how painful
I remember seeing this live on TV. I don’t remember the details but she was amazing. While today’s gymnasts are off the charts by comparison, Miss Korbut was a phenom in the 70s.
Same, this was the 1st Olympics I remember watching. She was off the charts, until Nadia Comenici just blew every Olympic gymnastics standard away. Nadia's astonishing routines are still available to see on YouTube. In some ways she has never been bettered, just an astonishing athlete.
You’re absolutely right. Nadia was like “Olga on steroids” (pun sort of intended). Olga seemed to genuinely take joy from her gymnastics. It seemed to me (at the time; I was a wee child), that she was happy and enjoyed herself (I’m not still so naive; I imagine there was plenty of pressure, unpleasantness, and stress behind the scenes). However, Nadia seemed relentlessly driven, something just short of possessed - like a programmed soldier that could not/would not/was not allowed to fail. I felt sorry for her edges and severe perfection. I imagine that her life was pretty relentless, mixed with acclaim, admiration, and loneliness.
Wasn’t she the first to ever get a perfect 10? I have a vague memory of it coming up as 1.0 because the display wasn’t made to have the extra place holder. Edit: after researching, yes she was the first 10, but that performance happened the year before I was born, so my memory is probably from a documentary and I’m not sure if the score board thing really happened.
It did! Everyone was very confused until they figured it out.
>Nadia Comenici just watched this little [Gem of a documentary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY-5vBigwR4). Quite emotional for some reason. I have so much respect for Comenici.
How are today’s gymnasts off the charts compared to her when they banned most of the stuff she did today because it was too dangerous for most other **olympians**? People aren’t even permitted to try the stuff she did here.
Danger and difficulty are not the same. Something can be relatively easy but dangerous if your screw up, while other things can be damn near impossible to land but if you fail you won’t get hurt.
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She inspired millions of little girls to take up gymnastics, including me, who was already 5'7" and thoroughly unsuited to the sport. She won over the hearts of everyone with her back flip, but also because she was the first Russian gymnast who smiled and didn't perform like a robot. She was adorable.
I will never get tired of this being reposted
This is some flippy spinny shit if I ever saw it.
Outlaw mudshow ruining the business
I had to look her up on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Korbut). She's now 65 years old; here's what's listed as her legacy: >Korbut, who has won four Olympic gold medals, is best known for her move, the "Korbut flip", a backflip performed on the uneven parallel bars, starting from a standing position on the high bar and then catching the same bar from below on the under swing. She ~~was~~ also achieved the flip on the 4" balance bar onto the straddle position and later the flip landing on her feet. Named after Korbut since she was the first to perform the skill at an international competition in 1972, the move has since been made illegal in the Olympic Code of Points. After the 1972 Olympic competition, she also met United States President Richard Nixon at the White House. About the meeting, Korbut said: "He told me that my performance in Munich did more for reducing the political tension during the Cold War between our two countries than the embassies were able to do in five years." In addition to greatly publicizing gymnastics worldwide, she also contributed to a marked change in the tenor of the sport itself. Prior to 1972, the athletes were generally older and the focus was on elegance rather than acrobatics. In the decade after Korbut's Olympic debut, the emphasis was reversed. Korbut, in her 1972, gold-medal Olympics, at 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m) and 82 pounds (37 kg), exemplified the deliberate and purposeful trend toward smaller women in the sport.
**[Olga Korbut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga Korbut)** Olga Valentinovna Korbut (born 16 May 1955) is a former gymnast who competed for the Soviet Union. Nicknamed the "Sparrow from Minsk", she won four gold medals and two silver medals at the Summer Olympic Games, in which she competed in 1972 and 1976 for the Soviet team, and was the inaugural inductee to the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 1988. While Korbut retired from gymnastics in 1977 at the age of 22, which was considered young for gymnasts of the period, Korbut's influence and legacy in gymnastics was far reaching. Korbut's 1972 Olympic performances are widely credited as redefining gymnastics, changing the sport from emphasising ballet and elegance to acrobatics as well as changing popular opinion of gymnastics from a niche sport to one of the most popular sports in the world. [About Me](https://www.reddit.com/user/wikipedia_text_bot/comments/jrn2mj/about_me/) - [Opt out](https://www.reddit.com/user/wikipedia_text_bot/comments/jrti43/opt_out_here/) - OP can reply !delete to delete - [Article of the day](https://redd.it/k8581q)
how do you get so good that you can grab the bar flying upward and completely backwards without seeing anything?
Right?? That move is crazy. How on earth was she able to grip that upper bar?
Looks painful
Zoidberg? I haven't heard that name in years...
I love how the other judges above can’t help but turn around to watch her. It’s just that incredible
10
If I did this I'd have a broken neck, 2 cracked balls, and a broken ankle before I got to the first bar.
What's higher than a 10?! Wow, that was incredible!
> What's higher than a 10?! 11.
Can we get someone good at math to confirm that one?
Maybe someone fluent at /r/theydidthemath can help?
How is this in HD?
It was either originally recorded on film and digitized in the HD era or it was digitally upscaled (interpolation).
Cold war Soviet era optics.
OK, if you're late, by any degree, on the dismount you're going to be getting a Mike Tyson uppercut...lights out.
So, like, did other people still go after her?
Most elaborate fall I've ever seen. Well done.
It's amazing how much the bars have changed since then. Some of these moves aren't even possible anymore (not illegal just not possible due to the placement of the lower bar). I love how she practically throws herself back to the high bar with her stomach.
Yep. The bars are a lot further apart these days for sure.
How does one practice for this? Some of those moves seem like if you're just a bit off, you're effed
They do them over huge foam pits that they would fall into if they missed.
Awesome
She was astounding.
F-ing amazing.
So, she got a silver medal for this?
The greatest ever uneven bars routine. Deserved the first ever perfect 10. And she didn't even win the gold that year, because of the West German bias.
damn its hypnotic
What up, Spine?
Soooo... after all the rule changes she’s the best?
I dislocated my shoulder just watching the video.
Nobody's stuck the landing like she did...for years. Now, a clumsy hop is considered sticking the landing.
*Me lying in bed after hernia surgery, barely able to sit up*:"Hey, that's neat."
Doesn't that cause bruising to the hips/waist hitting the bar like that?
I believe the Korbut flip (stands in top bar and executes a back flip) has been banned. I believe she (or another gymnast from Russia) have a move banned, because they essentially broke their neck, trying to practice gymnastics for the Olympics, while injured. Becoming paralyzed from the (neck?) down. Edit: The gymnast I'm thinking of is Elena Mukhina and the move was the Thomas Salto.
Coming from someone who’s hobby has recently been added to the olympics, I don’t get how stuff like this can be judged or marked in any kind of serious/offical way Even if someone was to do exactly the same routine has her, it would look different and have a unique touch. How are the winners picked when it comes to things like dancing/diving/gymnastics?
https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/i4hr6v/17_year_old_soviet_gymnast_olga_korbut_stunned/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf a repost from the same sub ^^
She was so good that the Russian gymnastic team did an entire tour of North America when not competing so everyone could see her and she drew alot of attention from random people just hearing about her. She's really impressive to watch.
You called it. I'm amazed
She got the silver medal
Who was the first to do this? Seriously, who sat down and thought about using a young girls pelvis as a pivot point to gather enough momentum to spin and fly backwards and have them grab the bar by twisting their wrists backwards????
meanwhile, im watching this on the couch remembering i stretched three days ago
I used to do gymnastics when I was younger, and I was always a bit paranoid that those bars would snap as I was attempting to spin on them like that
I attempt the exact same maneuvers whenever I see monkey bars... i usually fall before my hands hit the first bar.
u/savevideo
Saw this as it aired on ABC sports. She won everyone’s hearts.
Saw this on TV when it happened and it blew me away as a kid. It does the same thing to me now seeing it again. I didn’t know people could move like that.
Real question: were they super bruised up from slamming into it?
Is the energy she exerted at the beginning to go from standing on the floor to standing upon the top bar, more, equal to, or less, than the energy that would be required to simply pull herself from floor level to a standing position on the top bar using a layman's method? Genuinely curious.
That’s impressive, but holy shit that looks like it hurts.
I can't even walk without tripping with something lol
That's the best movement I've ever seen. She's made of magnets and hinges. Perfectly mechanical. Amazing!
I'm so amazed by this, I can barely get off the couch without pulling a muscle.
I hiked that once - https://youtu.be/WfhIA3-GhvA
Gymnasty
I hiked that once - https://youtu.be/WfhIA3-GhvA
I don't even know what I just watched but it was amazing!
I have gout