Svetlana Boguinskaya is a three-time Olympian who competed in elite gymnastics from 1987-1992, and then again from 1995-1996. She became a member of the elite Soviet national gymnastics team at the age of 14 in 1987. She competed in 3 Olympic Games, 4 World Gymnastics Championships, and 4 European Gymnastics Championships.
She won her first medal on balance beam, a bronze, during the 1987 World Gymnastics Championships. Great things were expected of her at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and she did disappoint: with the hoopla and hype surrounding the showdown between her teammate Elena Shushunova and Romania’s Daniela Silivas, Svetlana won four medals (2 golds in the team and vault, a silver in floor exercise, and a bronze in the all-around) at those games.
After those games, however, tragedy struck. Svetlana’s long-time coach and mentor committed suicide just days after those Olympics. Even today, Svetlana finds it very hard to talk about the death of the coach who had been a surrogate mother to her. The reasons behind the suicide remain a mystery. But Svetlana would bounce back with a new coach and become the best gymnast in the world at the 1989 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. She dedicated this medal to her late coach, Lyobov Miromanova. She also won gold medals in the team and floor exercise.
At the 1990 European Gymnastics Championships, Boguinskaya became only the third female in gymnastics history to win all of the individual event gold medals (Vera Caslavska from Czechoslovakia in 1965 and 1967, and Ludmilla Tourischeva from the USSR in 1973 are the other two). But in 1991, she finished short of defending her world all-around title, losing it to the U.S.’s Kim Zmeskal and taking the silver medal. She would go on to add a gold medal in the balance bean to her team gold at those championships.
At 19 years old, Svetlana was considered old in her sport by modern-day gymnastics standards, so even just to medal was considered an accomplishment. But she began to have problems at the 1992 European Championships where she fell on floor exercise, her final event, and placed fifth in the all-around to her teammate Tatiana Gutsu. Despite this, she was still considered a favorite to win the all-around gold at the Olympics in Barcelona.
Boguinskaya won her third Olympic gold medal during the team competition at the 1992 Olympic Games, but finished fifth in the all-around mostly due to her lack of difficulty on uneven bars where she scored in the 9.8 range. (This score range was considered a relatively low score against a very competitive field who were scoring 9.9+ in each event).
After these Olympics, Svetlana decided to retire, but then came back in 1995 after seeing World, European, and Olympic champion figure skater Katarina Witt make a comeback at the 1994 Winter Olympics. She came back with more difficult routines and a smiling, positive attitude. She almost won the 1995 European Championship all-around competition, getting the silver medal behind Ukraine’s Lilia Podkopayeva (who was the reigning world and future Olympic all-around champion). Though she didn’t win any medals at the 1996 Olympics, she competed for her country of Belarus and got spots in the all-around and vault finals.
Today, Svetlana Boguinskaya lives in Houston, TX as a permanent U.S. resident with her husband and two kids.
