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| Olympic Games 2004 | | All-around finals | 38,211 | 2 |
| Olympic Games 2004 | | Team finals | 113,235 | 3 |
| World Championships 2003 | | All-around finals | 38,124 | 1 |
| World Championships 2001 | | All-around finals | 37,617 | 1 |
| World Championships 2001 | VT | Event finals | 9,412 | 1 |
| World Championships 2001 | UB | Event finals | 9,437 | 1 |
| World Championships 2001 | | Team finals | 109,023 | 2 |
| World Championships 2001 | FX | Event finals | 9,375 | 3 |
| Olympic Games 2000 | UB | Event finals | 9,862 | 1 |
| Olympic Games 2000 | FX | Event finals | 9,812 | 2 |
| Olympic Games 2000 | | Team finals | 154,403 | 2 |
| World Championships 1999 | UB | Event finals | 9,837 | 1 |
| World Championships 1999 | | Team finals | 153,209 | 2 |
| World Championships 1999 | FX | Event finals | 9,787 | 3 |
| World Championships 1997 | | All-around finals | 38,636 | 1 |
| World Championships 1997 | FX | Event finals | 9,800 | 1 |
| World Championships 1997 | UB | Event finals | 9,875 | 1 |
| World Championships 1997 | BB | Event finals | 9,787 | 2 |
| World Championships 1997 | | Team finals | 153,161 | 2 |
| Olympic Games 1996 | UB | Event finals | 9,850 | 1 |
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Svetlana Khorkina Biography
Svetlana Vasilievna Khorkina was born on January 19, 1979 in Belgorod, Russia. Svetlana is the most successful female gymnast of all time. In a sport where young gymnasts shine and quickly retire to prevent injury, Khorkina's career spans more than a decade, including three olympics and three changes to the Code of Points. Khorkina is known for her expressive dance, extreme difficulty, and innovative routines. She has been heavily criticised for bad sportsmanship and is notorious for proclaiming herself the winner in events where she did not win. Khorkina is renown for being a "diva," but in response to this she's cooed, "I don't mind. I wouldn't have been called a diva or a queen if I wasn't creative."
At 1.65 m (5'5"), she was unusually tall for her sport. Known for her long, elegant lines, she was discouraged from gymnastics because of her height, but with the help of her lifelong coach Boris Pilkin, she created new moves to accommodate her height and exploit her strengths. She has an unprecedented 8 moves named after her in the Artistic Gymnastics Code of Points, more than any other gymnast. Her favorite apparatus was the uneven bars, where she put her long legs and graceful lines to good use. She is the first gymnast to win three All-Around titles at the World Championships. At 24, Khorkina is tied with Vera Caslavska as the second oldest female World Champion, second to Larissa Latynina who won her second World All Around title in 1966 at the age of 28.
1994-1995
Khorkina won her first senior international medals at the 1994 World Championships in Brisbane: a silver medal on vault for a Yurchenko half-on, pike Cuervo-off skill; and a silver on uneven bars (her routine included a Markelov release, which is now named after her).
She was even more successful at the European Championships later that year. Here, she tied for silver in the all-around with teammate Dina Kochetkova and won bars outright. Khorkina also competed at the Goodwill Games and Team World Championships that year. Her first All-Around win came at the 1995 European Cup, where she also won medals on vault, uneven bars and in the floor exercise. She was expected to be a top contender for All-Around gold at the World Championships later that year. She comitted a triple twist in the floor exercise and scored low, but solid performances on beam and vault and a stellar routine on the unevens helped her to a silver medal behind gold medallist Lilia Podkopayeva. In the bars final, Khorkina took her first world gold, the first of many, and beat Mo Huilan into second place.
1996
Prior to the Olympics, Svetlana retained both her world and European titles on bars, and also helped the Russians to team silver at the European Championships in Birmingham, as well as taking bronze on vault. A fall from beam in the all-around, prevented her from medalling there, not the first time this would happen to Svetlana.
Thanks to her recent successes, Khorkina was considered to be a top contender for the All-Around gold going into the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Russian team was looking stronger than it had since the break-up of the USSR. However, the competition proved to be a disappointment both for her and for the Russian team. Svetlana and the other more experienced members of the team, Rozalia Galiyeva and Dina Kochetkova, performed strongly, but the younger athletes made several mistakes, seemingly overwhelmed by both the intense noise from the crowd and the strong performances from the US team. As the team trooped off, Svetlana was one of the only members not to be in tears. There was to be no consolation in the All-Around. Khorkina performed solidly on floor, beam and vault, but dropped out of contention for a medal when she fell from the uneven bars on a clear underswing half, a transition from the low to the high bar named for her; she finished in 15th place. However, she saved her Olympics by winning the gold on bars, much to her delight, and took the only gold for the Russian women's gymnastics team in Atlanta. The silver co-medallists were Bi Wenjing and Amy Chow.
1997-2000
Khorkina became the one to watch, with long lean lines and top acrobatic and execution skills. Her physicial glamor of blonde hair and blue eyes competed with her emotional ambitions and intensely patriotic but forthright personality.
Like her compatriot Aleksei Nemov, Khorkina's performances over the next four years were uneven. Khorkina might perform solidly or accede to the pressure that felled many other gymnasts. Scoring was a hot topic. In the 1997 World Championships in Lausanne, changes in the Code of Points were expected to negatively affect Khorkina, but she clinched her first world all-around title after a stellar finish on the bars, earning her the highest score of the championship. She beat Olympic vault champion Simona Amanar into second place, a scenario that was also repeated in the 1998 European Championships.
In the two years after winning the world title, Khorkina tempered excellence with occasional inconsistency. Yet her skills were difficult and innovative in all events, especially on the uneven bars and balance beam. On the bars, she continued to dominate; she was soon nicknamed the Queen of the Bars.
Khorkina won the European All-Around title in 1998, but faltered during the All-Around in the Goodwill Games. She entered the 1999 World Championships as a favorite, but finished well out of the medals after a disaster on beam. The Russian team as a whole couldn't stick a gold medal performance and to make things worse, the Russian team lost the gold medal when Khorkina stepped off the beam in the final performance of the last rotation. She continued her winning streak on bars, however, winning her 4th consecutive world title.
2000 Olympic Games
Khorkina entered the 2000 Sydney Olympics in Sydney, Australia as the favorite for the All-Around title. Despite her disappointment in Tianjin, she had retained her European all-around title and had beaten most of the gymnasts who could rival her for the all-around title. After preliminaries in the Olympics, she held a large lead on the pack. She unveiled a very difficult vault that had never been seen before - not even in practice. She stuck the vault - a Khorkina II - in the team competition. She also performed well in the floor exercise and uneven bars, qualifying to both event finals. She did qualify to the Balance Beam final, but was unable to compete in the final as she was the third highest Russian in qualifications - only two gymnasts per country may compete in the event finals. The rest of her team were also successful in preliminaries, beating world champions Romania comfortably, and the stage seemed set for Russian glory.
However, they had a nightmare in the team finals, where the title is decided. Khorkina fell from bars, Elena Produnova sat down her vault, and disastrously both Elena Zamolodchikova and Yekaterina Lobaznyuk tumbled from beam. The first three errors were not entirely disastrous, as at that time the lowest score on every apparatus was dropped, so one fall alone did not ruin a team's chances. Still, only the less renowned gymnasts on the team were solid, but it was not enough. Despite a near perfect floor rotation to wind up the competition, the Russians were two tenths behind Romania. Without the errors, they would have been comfortably ahead, which would have given Russia their first ever team title in women's gymnastics. Though it was the beam which really took Russia out of the running, had Khorkina hit bars and received the same score as she did in event finals, the Russians would have taken the title by a mere five thousands of a point. Disgusted, Khorkina removed her silver medal as soon as she stepped down from the podium. For the second Olympics running, her team were bitterly disappointed with their silver.
Infamously, before the All-Around competition began, the vault was accidentally set 5cm (2 inches) too low -highly significant in a sport where the success of an element rests on spatial awareness and very small margins. A number of gymnasts made uncharacteristic errors, including Elise Ray andAnnika Reeder, who was too injured to continue. Khorkina complained about the vault to an Australian official after the warm-up but was ignored. It wasn't until Australian Allana Slater echoed Khorkina's sentiments in the next rotation that the error was corrected. Khorkina had been in the lead after the first rotation, but came to the mis-measured vault in the second and crashed on her first attempt. She then fell in her uneven bars routine. Shortly afterwards, she was formally informed that the height of the vault had been corrected, but it was too late. Those affected were allowed to perform their vaults again - but their scores on the other apparatus would stand. Khorkina declined the opportunity and finished 10th. Her scores on bars and vault from the preliminaries, plus what she received on beam and floor in the all-around, would easily have won her the Olympic all-around title.
The initial winner, Andreea Raducan of Romania was stripped of her medal after a positive drug test; she had used a banned cold medicine. Her teammate Simona Amânar was officially named the 2000 Olympic All-Around champion, though she herself has never accepted this and gave her gold medal to Raducan. In several interviews following the Olympics, Khorkina referred to the incident as a "black spot in my soul".
After these crushing disappointments, both Khorkina and the Russian team bounced back in event finals. In a tense and emotionally charged competition, Svetlana narrowly retained her bars title. Once again she beat a Chinese athlete into second place, this time Ling Jie. She also won a silver on floor behind teammate Elena Zamolodchikova.
2001-2004
Khorkina stayed competitive as she aimed for a spot in a third Olympic Games. She appeared at the 2001 World Championships and won the All-Around title as well as the vault, and continued her winning streak on the uneven bars. With 5 consecutive World titles and 2 Olympic titles, Khorkina was now the most accomplished gymnast ever, male or female, on a single apparatus. From 1995 to 2001, she had won every World and Olympic title on the bars.
Khorkina won the European All-Around title in 2002. She beat Verona van de Leur of the Netherlands despite crashing her vault. Many including commentator and former USA Olympic gymnast Bart Connor felt, that Van De Leur should have won, and that Khorkina only won due to favouritism from judges.[citation needed] She admitted in 2003, as gymnastics took its toll on her body, that she had begun to "feel her age", but vowed to return to the Olympics for a third time. At the 2003 World Championships in Anaheim, California she became World All-Around champion for a third time, a feat that had never been accomplished by any woman.
2004 Olympic Games
Khorkina went into the 2004 Athens Olympics as one of the favorites. Somewhat underpar in prelims, nonetheless she qualified to the all-around and bars finals. In the team competition, her solid performances helped Russia to a surprise bronze, and their delight at this result was in stark contrast to the reaction to the silver at the two previous Games. In the All-Around competition, she won silver behind the American Carly Patterson. She had been leading after two events, but wobbles on beam and an incomplete triple spin on floor allowed Patterson to move ahead and take the title. In a press conference after the medal ceremony Khorkina claimed that Patterson only won because she was American before stating that this was only a joke and that she, Khorkina was still Olympic champion. It is unclear whether Khorkina meant that she was the rightful champion of the 2004 all-around, or was referring to the fact that she was the reigning bars champion after her victory in Sydney. However in a later interview with a Russian newspaper, Izvestia, Khorkina claimed that Patterson's win was 'fixed' and that it had been decided in advance, citing the lengthy delay in posting her vault score whilst judges conferred.
Life Outside Gymnastics and Controversy
Khorkina has enjoyed almost as much attention for her activities outside the gym. She caused a scandal by posing nude for the Russian version of Playboy in November 1997. She refused to apologise for this. She has aspirations to become an actress, and has appeared on the American talk show The Rosie O'Donnell Show and taken to the stage as Brenda Venus, Henry Miller's last love, in a Sergei Vinogradov production. She claimed that she did not have the patience to coach. She is currently focused on motherhood: she gave birth to her first child, a son named Svyatoslav, on July 21, 2005 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, thus giving her child American citizenship. Since December 2004 she has been vice-president of the Russian artistic gymnastics federation. She has been a member of the political party of United Russia since 2003. On March 12, 2007 in her native city of Belgorod, the sport complex of the Belgorod State University is opened. The complex was named after Svetlana. Front of the complex there is a statue of her as well.
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