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| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Tatiana Gutsu | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1976-09-05)5 September 1976 (age 49) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gymnastics career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Women's artistic gymnastics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country represented |  Ukraine(1988–1992 (URS) 1992 (UKR)) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Former countries represented |  CIS ( Unified Team) Soviet Union | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | Ukrainian Armed Forces (Odesa)[1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Tatiana Gutsu, rarelyTetiana Hutsu,[2] (Ukrainian:Тетяна Костянтинівна Ґуцу,Romanian:Tatiana Guțu; born 5 September 1976, inOdesa,Ukrainian SSR) is a Ukrainian formerartistic gymnast from theSoviet Union and the winner of the all-around title in the1992 Summer Olympics. She was renowned for performing some of the most difficult routines in the sport.[3] She was inducted into theInternational Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2022.[4]
Born into aUkrainian family withMoldovan roots, Gutsu started in gymnastics at age 6. She became a member of the national team of the Soviet Union in 1988.[5] Her first major international competition was the1991 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships inIndianapolis, where she won the team title with the Soviet Union[6] and finished fifth in the individual all-around,[7] while winning silver medals in two individual apparatus finals: the uneven bars and balance beam. Her silver on beam was highly controversial because the winner, Soviet teammateSvetlana Boginskaya, performed a simpler routine.
Gutsu was quickly noticed for the difficulty of her routines. She was one of the few gymnasts during the late 80s/early 90s to perform a double-twistingYurchenko vault. She also debuted a double layout somersault on floor with split legs in the first salto, a skill that few others have been able to perform. Perhaps most impressively, she ended her floor routine in the team competition with a double layout somersault.
The following year, she had a disastrous showing at the1992 World Championships. She had been expected to contend for gold on three events—uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise—but failed to reach the finals on any of them, suffering falls on both the bars and floor. However, at the European Gymnastics Championships that year, she won the all-around, vault, and uneven bars titles, as well as a silver on the balance beam. She was the most successful gymnast of the championship and established herself as one of the favorites for the Olympic all-around title.
In the preliminary round of competition at the Olympics, Gutsu, then 15, fell from the balance beam and was ranked 9th in the all-around. She had been on course to win the optional portion of the team competition and was one of the favourites for the beam gold medal, but the fall meant she did not qualify for the beam final.
Although 36 gymnasts qualified for the all-around, only three competitors from each country were allowed in the final, and because of Gutsu's fall, three other competitors from theUnified Team placed higher in the preliminaries. However, the team coaches felt that Gutsu had a better chance of bringing home all-around gold than her teammates Boginskaya andRozalia 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.[8] Galiyeva was forced to claim a severe knee injury, which was "verified" by the team physician.[9][10]
In one of the deepest fields ever for the all-around, Gutsu was in a close race for the gold medal. She had a few balance checks in her difficult beam routine and made an error on her double layout on floor, allowing her rivals to stay in contention with her. With one apparatus to go, Gutsu was tied for first place withShannon Miller of the United States. Her final performance on vault (a full-twisting layout Yurchenko) was just enough to hold off Miller's challenge.[8] Gutsu won the title by .012,[11] which remains the closest margin of victory ever in an Olympic all-around. She also took home medals in the team competition (gold), uneven bars (silver) and floor exercise (bronze).[3]
What set Gutsu apart from Miller was her difficulty.[3] 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. She performed the same vault as most other leading gymnasts (exceptTatiana Lysenko), but her difficulty on the other three events was high. Her beam routine was especially notable: she competed probably the most difficult dismount sequence of all time, threeback handsprings into a tucked full-in, and also performed a standing back somersault with a full twist. On floor, Gutsu opened with a split-leg double layout and closed with a piked full-in. On bars, she dismounted with a double layout. Miller showed less difficulty, particularly on the floor exercise (where she performed a 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 impressive on beam with her back handspring to three layouts sequence, her superior form, and a stuck full-in dismount.
Galiyeva was always angry and bitter about having given up her place in the all-around 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 a teammate who is considered weaker. Other notable examples include the replacement ofAlexandra Marinescu withSimona Amânar in the1996 Olympics,[12] and the Soviet coaches' removal ofOlga Mostepanova andIrina Baraksanova forElena Shushunova andOksana Omelianchik in the1985 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 theUnited States, where she is a gymnastics coach inMichigan.[13] She tried for a comeback to compete at the2003 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships as a three-event specialist (vault, beam, and floor), but was unsuccessful.
In October 2017, she accused former Soviet (Belarusian) gymnastVitaly Scherbo of raping her when she was 15.[14]
| Year | Event | Team | AA | VT | UB | BB | FX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Junior | |||||||
| 1986 | CA-VMD Junior Championship |  | |||||
| 1987 | Sdushor Championships |  | |||||
| 1988 | SKA Championships | | |||||
| Ukrainian Championships | | ||||||
| URS-GDR Dual Meet | | ||||||
| 1989 | Druzhba | 4 | |||||
| URS National Championships |  | | | | |||
| 1990 | Blume Memorial | | |||||
| USSR vs The World | 8 | ||||||
| Moscow News/World Stars | 9 | ||||||
| USSR Cup | | ||||||
| World Sports Fair | 4 | ||||||
| URS-USA Dual Meet | 4 | ||||||
| USSR Championships | 4 | ||||||
| Junior USSR Championships | | | | | | ||
| Junior European Championships | | | | | | | |
| Senior | |||||||
| 1991 | Moscow News/World Stars | | | | | | |
| Hungarian International | | | | ||||
| USSR Cup | | 4 | | ||||
| DTB Cup | | ||||||
| Coca-Cola International | | ||||||
| Rome Grand Prix | | ||||||
| Grand Prix Finals (Torino) | | | |||||
| URS-ITA Dual Meet | | ||||||
| URS-ESP Dual Meet | | ||||||
| USSR Championships | | 4 | | 4 | | ||
| World Championships | | 5 | | | |||
| 1992 | CIS Cup | | | ||||
| Moscow News/World Stars | | | | | | ||
| CIS Championships | 6 | | | | | ||
| European Championships | | | | | | ||
| Imperial Casino | | | |||||
| DTB Cup | 5 | ||||||
| Gander Memorial | 5 | ||||||
| Olympic Games | | | | | |||
| 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 | |||||
| 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 |
| 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 |
