Tatiana Lysenko facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Tatiana Lysenko
Lysenko (right) at the 1992 Olympics
Personal information
Full name	Tatiana Felixivna Lysenko
Country represented	Ukraine
Former countries represented	CIS ( Unified Team)  Soviet Union
Born	(1975-06-23) June 23, 1975 (age 50) Kherson, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Club	Dynamo Kherson
Head coach(es)	Oleg Ostapenko
Retired	1994
Medal record Representing  CIS ( Unified Team) Olympic Games Gold 1992 Barcelona Team Gold 1992 Barcelona Balance Beam Bronze 1992 Barcelona Vault World Championships Bronze 1992 Paris Floor exercise Representing  Soviet Union World Championships Gold 1991 Indianapolis Team World Cup Final Gold 1990 Brussels All-around Gold 1990 Brussels Uneven bars Bronze 1990 Brussels Floor exercise Goodwill Games Gold 1990 Seattle Team Representing  Ukraine World Championships Bronze 1993 Birmingham All-around European Championships Silver 1992 Nantes Uneven bars Summer Universiade Gold 1993 Buffalo All-around Gold 1993 Buffalo Team Gold 1993 Buffalo Balance beam

Tatiana Felixivna Lysenko (born June 23, 1975) is a famous former gymnast from Ukraine. She competed for both the Soviet Union and Ukraine between 1990 and 1994.

Lysenko was part of the powerful Soviet Union gymnastics team in the early 1990s. At that time, the team had so many amazing gymnasts that they never lost a team competition at the Olympic Games. Her biggest achievement was winning a gold medal on the balance beam at the 1992 Olympics.

A Champion's Journey

Tatiana Lysenko was born in the city of Kherson in what was then the Ukrainian SSR, part of the Soviet Union. She started gymnastics when she was seven years old. By 1990, she was competing as a senior gymnast and quickly made a name for herself by winning the all-around title at the World Cup. The all-around competition is where gymnasts compete on all four events: vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise.

Success with the Soviet Team

In 1991, Lysenko was chosen for the Soviet team at the World Championships in Indianapolis, USA. She helped her team win the gold medal. She also qualified for the all-around final, but a fall from the balance beam kept her from winning an individual medal.

Olympic Glory in Barcelona

Lysenko's most famous moments came at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. By this time, the Soviet Union had broken up. She competed as part of the Unified Team, which was made up of athletes from the former Soviet republics.

The team, which included other star gymnasts, easily won the team gold medal. In the individual events, Lysenko showed her strength and skill.

• She won a bronze medal in the vault event. She performed a double-twisting Yurchenko, which was the hardest vault anyone did in the competition.
• She won the gold medal on the balance beam, earning a nearly perfect score of 9.975.

Representing Ukraine

After the Olympics, many of her teammates retired. But Lysenko decided to keep competing, now for her home country of Ukraine.

At the 1993 World Championships, she won a bronze medal in the all-around. She performed so well that she might have won gold, but she took a small step outside the lines during her floor routine.

Lysenko continued to compete until 1994, when she retired from gymnastics after the World Championships that year.

Life After Gymnastics

After she stopped competing, Tatiana Lysenko moved to the United States and now lives in California. She didn't stop working hard. She went to law school at the University of San Francisco School of Law and became a lawyer in 2005.

Because of her amazing achievements in gymnastics, she has received many honors. In 2002, she was added to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. In 2016, she was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame. Today, she is married and has a daughter.

See also

In Spanish: Tatiana Lysenko (gimnasta) para niños

• List of select Jewish gymnasts