List of Gymnasts Who Won All-Around Medals Without Winning a Medal in Event Finals

The following is a list of gymnasts of who have won medals in the All-Around, but in that very same competition they did not win medals in Event Finals. The data includes every Olympics and World Championships from 1950-present. At the end of the list is an editor’s note.

YearNameCountryAA Medal
1974
Worlds
Angelika HellmannEast GermanyBronze
1978
Worlds
Natalia ShaposhnikovaSoviet UnionBronze
1981
Worlds
Maria FilatovaSoviet UnionSilver
1981
Worlds
Olga BicherovaSoviet UnionGold
1983
Worlds
Natalia YurchenkoSoviet UnionGold
1989
Worlds
Natalia LaschenovaSoviet UnionSilver
1993
Worlds
Tatiana LysenkoUkraineBronze
1995
Worlds
Lavinia MilosoviciRomaniaBronze
1996
Olympics
Lavinia MilosoviciRomaniaBronze
1999
Worlds
Viktoria KarpenkoUkraineSilver
2000
Olympics
Maria OlaruRomaniaSilver
2001
Worlds
Natalia ZiganshinaRussiaSilver
2003
Worlds
Svetlana KhorkinaRussiaGold
2003
Worlds
Carly PattersonUnited StatesSilver
2003
Worlds
Zhang NanChinaBronze
2004
Olympics
Svetlana KhorkinaRussiaSilver
2004
Olympics
Zhang NanChinaBronze
2005
Worlds
Monette RussoAustraliaBronze
2007
Worlds
Jade BarbosaBrazilBronze
2007
Worlds
Vanessa FerrariItalyBronze
2009
Worlds
Bridget SloanUnited StatesGold
2010
Worlds
Jiang YuyuanChinaSilver
2012
Olympics
Gabby DouglasUnited StatesGold
2012
Olympics
Viktoria KomovaRussiaSilver
2014
Worlds
Kyla RossUnited StatesBronze
2015
Worlds
Gabby DouglasUnited StatesSilver
2015
Worlds
Larisa IordacheRomaniaBronze
2017
Worlds
Ellie BlackCanadaSilver
2019
Worlds
Tang XijingChinaSilver
2021
Worlds
Kayla DiCelloUnited StatesBronze
2025
Worlds
Leanne WongUnited StatesSilver

Editor’s Note: It has always been my goal to produce projects that praise gymnasts for their accomplishments rather than tear them down for the medals they don’t win. After 7 years and over 400+ posts on TMC, this is the first time I’ve published a project that seems to be at odds with that goal.

The reason I went ahead with publishing this project is because the data itself provides valuable historical context that will be useful in future TMC articles. Most notably how much of an injustice was it that Larisa Iordache did not qualify for the 2016 Olympics and how the All-Around is being impacted by the rise of specialists in the modern era.

But it is also my hope that demonstrating how often this trend actually has occurred will make it less likely the gymnasts who have experienced this trend will be criticized for it. Most notably Gabby Douglas who had a very high profile Olympic career while also achieving this trend twice. This trend occurs with such frequency that it is expected to occur roughly once every two years.

Lastly, it really needs to be said that winning an All-Around medal is a highly prestigious accomplishment, crowning those three gymnasts (barring any ties) as the best in the world. How they perform in Event Finals does nothing to take away from that and this page shouldn’t be interpreted to say otherwise

2 thoughts on “List of Gymnasts Who Won All-Around Medals Without Winning a Medal in Event Finals

  1. I just got through doing the whole data subset for the men, although I need to put in their countries! I would need to do a deeper dive on the data set I just got through doing (all done this evening/tonight) in order to come up with ALL of the analysis you did on the next entry, but I can share the following with you.

    The 1904 Olympics was very problematic for this data, so right now I am not including it in this preliminary share, except where specifically noted.

    It happened 58 times – 47 times since and including 1950.

    9 Gold medalists – 7 times since/including 1950. 1922 Worlds Frantisek Pechacek of CzechoSlovakia. 1926 Worlds Peter Sumi of Yugoslavia. 1962 Worlds Yuri Titov of USSR. 2001 Worlds Feng Jing of China. 2005 Worlds Hiroyuki Tomita of Japan. 2007 Worlds Yang Wei of China. 2009 Worlds Kohei Uchimura of Japan. 2016 Olympics Kohei Uchimura of Japan – only time it happened to a Gold Medalist at the Olympics. 2021 Worlds Zhang Boheng of China.

    6 gymnasts have done it on more than one occasion. Of those 6, 2 gymnasts have done it 3 times.

    2 timers are: 1911 (Bronze) and 1913 (Silver) Karel Stary of CzechoSlovakia. 2003 Worlds (Bronze) and 2005 Worlds (Gold) – Hiroyuki Tomita of Japan. 2010 Worlds (Silver) and 2011 Worlds (Silver) Philipp Boy of Germany. 2021 (Bronze) and 2023 (Silver) Ilia Kovtun of Croatia.

    3 timers: 2000 Olympics (Silver) and 2003 Worlds (Silver) and 2007 Worlds (Gold) Yang Wei of China. 2021 Worlds (Gold) and 2022 Worlds (Silver) and 2025 Worlds (Silver) Zhang Boheng of China.

    Not counting the 1904 Olympics, the entire AA podium did it twice. – 2005 & 2009.

    If I were to try to come up with an angle like your Iordache one, it would take me a lot longer, if there is even a comparable one on the men’s side. Same for one like Angelika Hellmann.

    There are other things you did in your analysis that would take me longer to try to put together in my own. Much less – coming up with percentages. This is merely what I’ve been able to come up with in the last 4 or 5 hours or so.

    But there is one thing in particular that I would like to share.

    There is a major tragic note with the 1994 Russian men which I have noted elsewhere before in my private writings. 3 different gymnasts from the men’s 1994 Worlds Russian team have died very prematurely. From the 1994 Individual worlds, both Alexei Voropaev and Evgeny Shabaev, respectively 2nd and 5th at the 1994 Individual Worlds, died very prematurely. Voropaev died at 33 years old in 2006 and Shabaev died at 25 in 1998. Voropaev did the AA (Silver) w/o EF in 1994 and Shabaev did the AA (Bronze) w/o EF in 1995. Dmitry Vasillenko who competed at the Team Worlds in 1994, but not the individual ones, also died at 43 in 2019. So, out of the 8 total Russian male gymnasts who competed at either the 1994 Individual Worlds or 1994 Team Worlds, at least 3 are dead so far, including 2 of the 3 who competed at the Individual worlds, leaving only Alexei Nemov behind. If I were Nemov, who finished 14th at the individual Worlds in 1994, I would have a serious survivor’s complex. I can’t imagine what he and his teammates go through mentally and otherwise on a daily basis.

    Like

  2. I should also add to the 1994 Russian angle – Dmitry Karbanenko. Easy enough to look up his Wikipedia or Gymn-Forum bio to see how incredible his career was both in terms of decoration and length. Any such look, especially at his Gymn-Forum bio, should easily detect questions on his lack of success while Russian – he quite obvious seems to have been “held back” in the Russian system. He essentially had to leave Russia for France just so his career (and he, himself?) could survive. 1995 Russian Championships 1st AA but 23rd at the Worlds the same year? Competing at the 1996 Russians, 2nd, but not on the Olympic team that year???

    I call this part of the “Kaliningrad Curse” (which he shared with former late 1960s and early 1970s star Tamara Lazakovich) – again easy enough to see how decorated she was if one does a simple Wikipedia or Gymn-Forum search for her. 1971 Euro AA Champ, nearly swept EFs. 1972 Olympic AA Bronze medalist, including highest overall score in compulsories and 2 EF medals. IIRC, she died before 40. I should add, because it seems historically and politically relevant, that this Russian Exclave of Kaliningrad was formerly the city of Konigsberg which was the capital of Prussia for 175+ years before Berlin became the capital.

    So, out of the total of 7 different teammates that Nemov had at both 1994 Worlds, so far at least 3 have died quite prematurely and 1 other appears to have had to emigrate from Russia so that, at the very least, his career, and possibly even he, himself, could survive. How can this not raise questions? How can this NOT have had a resolution by now?

    Karbanenko (and by extension Lazakovich) not directly relevant to AA w/o EF at Worlds/Olympics, however as the AA w/o EF hits on the 94 Russian Men’s Team angle, especially the 1994 Individual Worlds representative, this brings up Karbenko if one knows enough about the sport, and Karbanenko brings up Lazakovich.

    Like

Leave a comment