Product Code Database
Olga Valentinovna Korbut (born 16 May 1955) is a Belarusian retired gymnastics 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.
Korbut retired from gymnastics in 1977 at the age of 22, considered young for gymnasts of the period, but her influence and legacy in gymnastics were 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 gymnastics from a niche sport to one of the most popular sports in the world. She emigrated to the United States in 1991, where she now lives and trains gymnasts. She became a citizen in 2000.
She finished fifth at her first competition in the 1969 USSR championships, where she was allowed to compete as a 14-year-old. The next year, she won a gold medal in the vault. Due to illness and injury, she was unable to compete in many of the competitions before the 1972 Summer Olympics.
Korbut is most famous for her uneven bars and balance beam routines, as well as her charismatic performances that captivated audiences. In 1973, she won the Russian and World Student (i.e., University) Games, and a silver medal in the all-around at the European Championships.
At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Soviet coaches and officials had designated Korbut as the woman who could beat the Romanian prodigy, Nadia Comăneci, but Korbut was injured and her performances in the games were sub-par. She was overshadowed not only by Comăneci, but also by her own teammate Nellie Kim. She did collect a team gold medal, and an individual silver medal for the balance beam.
In 1991, she and her family immigrated to the United States, prompted by concerns about the aftereffects of the Chernobyl disaster on Belarus. They settled in New Jersey, where she taught gymnastics. Two years later, the family moved to the U.S. state of Georgia, where she continued to coach. Korbut and Bortkevich divorced in 2000, the same year she became a naturalized U.S. citizen. Ольга КОРБУТ: "Хотя я имею американское гражданство, душа у меня все равно осталась белорусской». novosti24.by (27 November 2012) In 2002, she moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, to become head coach at Scottsdale Gymnastics and Cheerleading. Olga Korbut Today . Olgakorbut.com (31 April 2012). Retrieved on 18 July 2020. Korbut was also featured on an episode of Celebrity Boxing, which aired on May 22, 2002, with her opponent, Darva Conger, winning by unanimous decision.
During the 2012 Summer Olympics, in London, Korbut appeared on Twitter and Facebook, providing live, on-site commentary on the gymnastics competitions in the North Greenwich Arena. During the games, the Royal Opera House hosted an exhibition created in collaboration with the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, entitled The Olympic Journey, The Story of the Games. Along with historical artifacts, the show featured the personal narratives of 16 Olympic medalists, including Korbut. Her appearance at the exhibition on August 3 of that year marked the 40th anniversary of her Olympic victories. "I didn't even expect this," she said. "I am so honored to be here."
In 2017, Korbut sold her 1972 and 1976 Olympic medals, among 32 lots (including two golds and a silver from the Munich Olympics), which fetched $333,500 at Heritage Auctions.Archived at Ghostarchive and the
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine: Советская гимнастка Корбут продала олимпийские медали с аукциона на общую сумму $230 тыс. tass.ru (27 February 2017)
In 1999, she spoke out about the sexual assault and rape she had suffered at the hands of her coach, Renald Knysh, which he denied. "The truth was that many of the gymnasts were not just sport machines, but sexual slaves to the trainer," Korbut stated. "We were not just potential gymnasts, but future concubines for himself." Later, in 2018, Korbut appeared on a TV show, in which she again spoke out about several incidents of sexual assault by her coach. As a result of her speaking out publicly, several other gymnasts, who had also trained under Knysh, came forward to reveal their own similar experiences of sexual assault.
In 2021, Korbut was named by Carnegie Corporation of New York as an honoree of the Great Immigrants Award.
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 and , exemplified the deliberate and purposeful trend toward smaller women in the sport.Her 1972 Olympic achievement earned her the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year and ABC's Wide World of Sports title of Athlete of the Year. In a UK poll conducted by Channel 4 in 2002 the public voted "Olga Korbut charms the world" No.46 in the list of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments.
With her display of artistry and grace, Korbut, along with Nadia Comăneci, brought unprecedented popularity to the sport in the early to mid-1970s, attributes which are now seen as a lost art in gymnastics with athleticism taking precedence.
| 3.6 |
In Uncanny X-Men #99 (June 1976), Nightcrawler makes a slight reference to Korbut's gymnastic skills in comparison to his own, to which Colossus, a fellow Soviet, admonishes him for it. X-Men #99 (June 1976), Marvel Comics
| 1967 | |
| 1969 | 4 |
| 1970 | |
| 1971 | |
| 1972 | |
| 1973 | |
| 1974 | |
| 1975 | 6 |
| 1976 | |
|
|
