Total Medals:
Olympics:
Worlds:
Euros:
Appearances:,

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If Olga Korbut was the first gymnast to achieve superstar status in women’s gymnastics, Natalia Kuchinskaya was the very first gymnast to achieve any type of star status at all. Despite having fewer medals than her rival Vera Caslavska, Kuchinskaya was the most popular gymnast of the late 1960s. But Kuchinskaya had the results to back up her fame. At the 1966 World Championships she recording a sweep by winning a medal on every event, something that has happened on just six occasions since then.

Kuchinskaya would lose her passion for the sport and abruptly retired at the peak of her career. This left Kuchinskaya as something of an enigma in women’s gymnastics history. The sport may have lost its biggest star, but Ludmilla Turischeva, Olga Korbut, Nellie Kim, and Nadia Comaneci would soon replace her. It was the gymnasts of the 1970s who made gymnastics what it is today, but the inclusion of Kuchinskaya as a member of the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame serves as an acknowledgement to the 1960s gymnast who made it all possible.

World Championships & Olympic Competition:

Results:

1965
USSR Championships 1st-AA, 1st-BB
USSR Cup: 2nd-AA

1966
World Championships 2nd-Team, 2nd-AA, 3rd-VT, 1st-UB, 1st-BB, 1st-FX
USSR Championships: 1st-AA, 2nd-UB, 1st-BB, 1st-FX
USSR Cup: 1st-AA

1967
European Championships: 2nd-BB, 2nd-FX
USSR Championships: 1st-AA, 1st-VT, 1st-UB, 1st-BB, 1st-FX
Pre-Olympics: 1st-AA

1968
USSR Championships: 1st-AA
Olympics: 1st-Team, 3rd-AA, 1st-BB, 3rd-FX

Gallery:

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Results are taken from Score for Score, The Gymternet, GymnasticGreats, My Meet Scores, Gymn-Forum, the official websites of various national gymnastics federations, newspaper clippings, classic gymnastics magazines, and in some cases, were provided by the gymnasts themselves. An explanation for the meaning of these symbols can be found here.