ALINA KABAEVA

World Champion Russian Rhythmic Gymnast

Her victory at the 1998 European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships in Portugal was for the majority of the people “out of the blue”. 15 years old Kabaeva was the youngest member of the Russian squad, competing alongside her internationally recognised team- mates Yanina Batyrchina and Amina Zaripova and this was only her fifth international competition.

Alina is originally from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, which was part of the Soviet Union when she was born on May 12th 1983 to the family of liuobov and Marat Kabaev. She took up Rhythmic Gymnastics at the age of 6. Her father being a professional football player, the family was always following him to different places in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. This is why Alina has changed many coaches, but quite surprisingly none of them seemed to consider her a gymnast of any particular talent. Alina’s mother brought her to be seen by the world-recognised coach Irina Viner in Moscow. " I could not believe my eyes, when I first saw her”, says Viner. “The girl has the rare combination of two qualities crucial in Rhythmic Gymnastics- flexibility and jumping ability.”

All efforts of Viner and Kabaeva paid off. In 1998 Alina surprised everybody by winning the European Championship at the age of 15, in 1999 she became European Champion for the second consecutive time. The same year she stole the World title in Osaka, Japan. In June 2000 she added a third European title to her tally in Saragossa.

No one doubted in her winning the Olympic gold medal in Sydney until, on her second performance, the most unexpected thing happened- Alina dropped her hoop and ran to retrieve it outside the competition area. As a result she was third.

Alina might have won “only” bronze in Australia, but she won, once again, people’s admiration by admitting that “Gold is not for those who make mistakes”, and by her relaxed, cheerful attitude after the competition. Since that time she has fully overcome that mistake and since that time has been winning every serious Gymnastics competition in the World.

Alina likes to eat spaghetti, chocolate (like so many Russians) and ice cream. Her favorite reading includes books by Alexander Dumas and Theodore Dreiser and her favorite subjects in school include Russian literature and English. However, Alina doesn’t have a lot of time for reading and studying because her weekly practices take up to 36 hours. Her coaches are Irina Viner, Veronika Shatkova, and Vera Shatalina. Together with them we wish Alina even more victories in Athens, 2004!