Larissa Latynina

(p. December 27, 1934)
Larissa Latynina Semenovna for an interesting sports career has won 18 Olympic medals - nine gold, five silver and four bronze medals. This collection does not anybody in the world, in any sport. And add it here medal world championships, Europe, the USSR!
. WORLD ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS should be grateful to the occasion, . that Latynina not become a ballerina - in his native Kherson after school, she worked diligently in the choreographic circle, . but he quickly came to a close, . a ballet school, . dreamed Folding, . perky girl, . was not there.,
. Unable to show her and her magnificent vocal
. Her first coach in the gym came to the head of the choir, which she wished to do his young ward is capable of, and begged: "Tell them that it has no no hearing, no vote - there is nothing". And it did. Hearing "No, dear, for chorus you can not approach", the girl returned home.
. Well laid out the fate of his patience, for which the global sport "acquired" in the end most titular gymnast of the past century.

. Larissa Latynina Semenovna for an interesting sports career has won 18 Olympic medals - nine gold, five silver and four bronze medals
. This collection does not anybody in the world, in any sport. And add it here medal world championships, Europe, the USSR!
- Sometimes I begin to count all their sports awards - laughing Larisa S., - so confusing somewhere between numbers 140 and 150. I am often asked: "Which of the medals you especially dorogaN" Of course, we can not forget about the first, this long-awaited happiness. Well, true, the latter - a sign of imminent separation from active sports. I can not say about the awards the World Cup 1958. Then on the platform I was thinking not so much about prizes and a possible spot in the table as the fact that my soon to be born child. And five months appeared Tatiana. When Tanya was a little and came to us visitors, she liked to skip the awards and said: "This is our medal with her mother, we won it together ..."

. ... In 1966, its last as a world championship gymnast 32-year-old Latynina was next to very young Olga Karaseva, Zina Druzhinina, Natasha Kuchino, Larisa Petrik
. "This is our mother - said then Karaseva. - She is kind and considerate, but also knows how to get angry, especially when we are with the girls secretly eat ice cream. I think that Larisa S. is very sad. This is probably her last tournament ... "

Yes, it was her last world tournament. A homo was time a new takeoff of the legendary champion: Latynina was the senior women's national team coach of the Soviet Union and ten years has been in this position. Under her leadership, our girls won three gold medals of the Olympics 1968.1972 and 1976. It was at this time Latynina and her assistants create gymnastic masterpieces Larissa Petrik, Elvira Saadi, Nina Dronov, Ludmila Tourischeva, Olga Korbut - deserving students and heirs of the great Latynina.
. And all this "golden decade" Larisa S. defended in the gym its principal, enduring values - beauty, femininity, lyricism
. She followed these principles all his life, trying not to prevail Gymnastics supertryukovoy, rigid, more circus than sport. Gymnastics soul, gymnastics was the inspiration for her above all.
Alas, after some time Latynina still had to leave the team.
- Fight was difficult, even futile - said Larisa S.. - But after years of watching performances of today's artists and see that return the old beauty, grace, harmony Gymnastics. So, I was right, and the awareness of this gives me strength.

Latynina, a long time did not leave a great sport. Five years was part of the Organizing Committee in Moscow, Olympics-80, then responsible for the development of gymnastics in the Sports Committee of Moscow. Now it is - one of the social leaders of the Union of athletes of Russia actively participates in the Association of Russia Olympic champions. Often you can see Larisa S. jury in the highest level of competitions in sport dancing. "They both remind me of my favorite floor exercise," - sighs Latynina.
And yet the case in Moscow Latynina infrequently. Most of the time she and her husband, Yuri (he is - one of the leaders of the capital of JSC "Dinamo", in the past master of sports of racing on the track), he has lived on his estate near Moscow suburb Semenovski. This is a real farm - with a cow, goat, pigs, sheep, rabbits, domestic dogs and a cat ...
- I like the new role of the manageress of a large economy - said Russia's famous sportswoman. - In his declining years pleasant to live in nature, engage in favorite thing. All my life, until I performed, coached, shook her towns and villages, their home, the apartment was no time to engage. Now everything is different, and I am happy to live every day, the benefit of a number of beloved husband, a house near her daughter with two grandchildren. I think that we are living happily ...