dismount
TRUE ORIGINAL
THIRTY years have passed since the elegant and innovative Yelena
Davydova captured the Olympic all-around in her native Russia. The 1980
Moscow Olympics may have
suffered a boycott of several
nations, but the absentees
would not have changed the
outcome of the women’s
competition.
Davydova’s routines were
full of interesting combinations, such as her clever
mount on bars (standing
front somi to catch in basket
swing), where she was the first to perform a Tkatchev. The inset photo
shown below, taken at her final major
competition, the 1981 Moscow
worlds, shows the element that followed her Tkatchev: after a counter-swing, she released the high bar and
grasped the low bar in an undergrip
while ducking into a front seat circle.
Today Davydova is passing along her
expertise at Gemini Gymnastics in
Oshawa, Ontario, where her top gymnast is new Canadian champion Kristina Vaculik. —Dwight Normile
