Olga Korbut

Lore & Background

Olga Korbut was born in Grodno to Valentin and Valentina Korbut. After World War II, the family moved to Grodno from Dubniaki before her birth. She started training at age 8 and entered a Belarusian sports school headed by coach Renald Knysh at age 9. Her first trainer was Elena Volchetskaya, an Olympic gold medalist, but she was moved to Knysh's group a year later. Initially he found her 'lazy and capricious' but saw potential in her talent, unusually supple spine, and charisma. With him, she learned a difficult backward somersault on the balance beam, debuting it at a competition in the USSR in 1969. That same year, she completed a backflip-to-catch on the uneven bars, the first backward release move ever performed by a woman on bars. She finished fifth at her first competition in the 1969 USSR championships and won a gold medal in the vault the next year. Due to illness and injury, she was unable to compete in many competitions before the 1972 Summer Olympics.

At the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Korbut's acrobatics brought her much fame. She was one of the favorites for the all-around after her dynamic team performance, but she missed her mount on bars three times, and the title went to teammate Ludmilla Tourischeva. She won three gold medals for balance beam, floor exercise, and team competitions. In the uneven bars event finals, after a successful routine, the audience whistled and shouted vulgar remarks at the judges when a score of 9.8 was displayed, believing it too low; the judges refused to change the score, and she finished with the silver medal. Korbut later said she considered it an example of unfair judging. In 1973, she won the Russian and World Student Games and a silver medal in the all-around at the European Championships. At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Soviet coaches and officials had designated her as the woman who could beat Nadia Comăneci, but Korbut was injured and her performances were sub-par. She was overshadowed by Comăneci and teammate Nellie Kim, but collected a team gold medal and an individual silver medal for the balance beam.

Korbut retired from gymnastics in 1977 at age 22. She graduated from the Grodno Pedagogical Institute in 1977, became a teacher, and married Leonid Bortkevich, a member of Belarusian folk band Pesniary. They had a son, Richard, born in 1979.

Reader's Guide

Olga Korbut's significance lies in her transformative impact on gymnastics. Her 1972 Olympic performances are widely credited with redefining the sport, shifting its focus from ballet and elegance to acrobatics, and elevating it from a niche activity to global popularity. She is best known for the Korbut flip, a backflip performed on the uneven bars from a standing position on the high bar, which has since been made illegal in the Code of Points because standing on the bars is no longer allowed. After the 1972 Olympics, she met U.S. President Richard Nixon at the White House, who told her that her performance did more to reduce Cold War political tension than embassies could in five years. Her 1972 achievement earned her the BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year and ABC's Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year. In a 2002 UK poll, the public voted 'Olga Korbut charms the world' No. 46 in the list of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments. Along with Nadia Comăneci, she brought unprecedented popularity to the sport in the early to mid-1970s, attributes now seen as a lost art as athleticism has taken precedence. In 2017, she sold her 1972 and 1976 Olympic medals, among 32 lots, for $333,500 at Heritage Auctions.

Did You Know?

• She performed the first backward release move ever by a woman on uneven bars in 1969.
• After the 1972 Olympics, U.S. President Richard Nixon told her her performance did more to reduce Cold War tension than embassies could in five years.
• In 2017, she sold her Olympic medals, including two golds and a silver from Munich, for $333,500 at Heritage Auctions.