Many remember Nadia Comăneci. But few know the name of the young woman who once surpassed her.
In 1978, the world was stunned by an 18-year-old Soviet gymnast: Elena Mukhina. She won gold at the World Championships in Strasbourg, outscored the legendary Comăneci, and even created her own element — the Mukhina flip — still considered one of the most difficult moves in gymnastics today.
The 1980 Moscow Olympics awaited her. But fate had other plans.
In 1979, Elena suffered a severe ankle fracture. Doctors advised her to retire from the sport, but her coach, Mikhail Klimenko, refused to let her stop. He pressured her, forced her back into training too soon, and told her, “Champions don’t break their necks.”
Just two weeks before the Olympics, Elena attempted the highly dangerous Thomas salto. She fell on her chin and broke her neck.
At just 20, Elena was left paralyzed from the neck down. The truth was hidden. It took almost two years for the world to learn what really happened, when a journalist brought her an honorary medal and was greeted at the door by a young woman in a wheelchair.
It was Elena.
Years later, she broke her silence. She spoke of being forced to train while injured, to remove her cast early, to do a move she never wanted. She said it clearly: she didn’t want to attempt that salto. But nobody listened.
And so, the athlete who could have become a legend became a martyr to ambitions that weren’t her own.
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🕊️ Let’s remember Elena Mukhina — a symbol of strength, courage, and the true cost of victory.