Elena Mukhina, the girl the world forgot

-ELENA MUKHINA, the girl with ice eyes -

Elena Mukhina was born on June 1rst, 1960 in URSS. At the age of five she lost both her parents and from then her gramma raised her. She dedicated all her life to gymnast and her dream was to go to the Olympic Games. Noboby knew her till 1975, when she started competing in her home state, Russia. In 1997 she became an official member of the URSS team and that year she won 13 important medals, including the European Games and the World Cup.
The next year at the World Championships she won other five medals, including the all-around title, beating out Olympic Champions Nadia Comăneci and top-ranked Soviet gymnast Nellie Kim, among others.
All the world talked about her, everyone knew she will win the next Olympic Games.
In 1979 she won the European Games, again. But the same year she broke her ankle. However her training didn't stop and she needed two surgical operations to recover.
In the 1980 she skipped the World Championships to focus on the Olympic Games. Her coach trained her for more than 8 hours a day. She had to win. A URSS gymnast had to win the Moscow Olympic Games and she was the best. So a "Thomas salto" was included in her routine, it was the most difficult jump ever: 1 and 3/4 flip with 1½ twists ending in a forward roll. Elena tried to refuse but at the end she had no choice. For days, weeks, months, she performed the Thomas Salto to refine it.
Finally the Olympic Games started but Elena wasn't there. Her coach during an interview said she had fallen and suffered from a minor injury.
The true is that Elena was practicing the pass containing the Thomas salto when her ankle succumbed, she under-rotated the salto and crash-landed on her chin, snapping her spine. She was instantly rendered a quadriplegic.
Her mates denounced Elena's coach had forced her to train even with a broken ankle and that he had verbally and mentally abused her.
Elena said: "I had said more than once that I would break my neck doing that element. I had hurt myself badly several times but he just replied people like me don't break their necks".
However she never blamed no one but herself, because she wasn't strong enough to rebel.
She died in 2006, from and heart attack caused by her physical conditions.
After the accident her coach, Mikhail Klimenko, moved to Italy where he died just one year after Elena.

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