Natalia Shaposhnikova

Natalia Vitalyevna Shaposhnikova (Russian: Наталья Витальевна Шапошникова; born 24 June 1961, in Rostov-on-Don), married name Natalia Sout, is a former Soviet artistic gymnast, two-time Olympic champion, and Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR. She was known for her risky, original skills and expressive choreography, especially on balance beam and floor exercise.

Natalia Shaposhnikova
Full name	Natalia Vitalyevna Shaposhnikova
Born	(1961-06-24) 24 June 1961 Rostov-on-Don
Residence	New Jersey, United States
Gymnastics career
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Country represented	Soviet Union
Eponymous skills	uneven bars: clear hip circle through handstand with flight to hang onto high bar
Medal record Representing Soviet Union Olympic Games 1980 Moscow Team 1980 Moscow Vault 1980 Moscow Balance Beam 1980 Moscow Floor Exercise World Championships 1978 Strasbourg Team 1979 Ft. Worth Team 1978 Strasbourg All-Around World Cup Final 1977 Oviedo Vault 1978 Sao Paulo Vault 1978 Sao Paulo Balance Beam 1978 Sao Paulo Floor Exercise 1977 Oviedo All-Around 1978 Sao Paulo All-Around European Championships 1979 Copenhagen Balance Beam 1979 Copenhagen Floor Exercise 1979 Copenhagen All-Around 1979 Copenhagen Vault

Competitive career

Shaposhnikova trained at Dynamo in Rostov-on-Don under Honoured Trainer of the USSR Vladislav Rastorotsky, who also trained her compatriots Ludmilla Tourischeva and Natalia Yurchenko. She was one of the world's strongest gymnasts in the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially on vault. She was known for her difficulty and originality, especially her one-armed handstands on beam. At the 1979 European Championships, she performed one of the first triple twists on floor, and her opening tumbling pass on floor at the 1980 Olympic Games was a roundoff 1.5-twisting layout immediately into a roundoff back handspring double pike.

At the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, she contributed to the Soviet team's gold medal and won an individual gold medal on vault. She also took home bronze medals on floor and beam, and missed a medal in the all-around by just 0.05.

Shaposhnikova came close to winning gold on beam at the 1978 World Championships, entering the final with a slight lead over Nadia Comăneci of Romania. However, Peter Shilston wrote in an April 1980 profile in British Gymnast magazine: "There was a fiercely partisan section of the audience determined that Comăneci should win to make up for her previous disappointing performances. When Natasha (Natalia?) came up, needing a score of 9.8 to take the gold, she faced a very hostile reception which clearly got on her nerves. She made a series of mistakes, all jeeringly received, and slumped from first place to eighth." Shilston called the loss "probably the saddest experience of Natasha's (Natalia's?) life".

Eponymous skill

Shaposhnikova invented a complex transition skill on the uneven bars—a clear hip circle on the low bar with flight backward to the high bar—and it is named after her in the Code of Points. The skill, sometimes referred to colloquially as the "Shaposh", is still widely performed today; it is credited as a D element in the 2013–16 Code of Points. Since the 1990s, other gymnasts have developed variations of the Shaposhnikova, including:

• Americans Amy Chow (stalder entry) and Kristen Maloney (toe-on entry)
• Russians Svetlana Khorkina (hip circle entry with half turn in flight) and Viktoria Komova (inbar stalder entry and inbar stalder with half turn in flight)
• Dutch gymnast Laura van Leeuwen (toe-on entry with half turn in flight)
• Russia's Aliya Mustafina and China's Yao Jinnan (stalder entry with half turn in flight)
• Germany's Elisabeth Seitz (toe-on entry with full turn in flight).

Coaching career

Shaposhnikova and her husband, Pavel Sout, a gold medalist in men's gymnastics at the 1981 World Championships, currently coach at Gymnastika in Woodland Park, New Jersey.

Achievements (non-Olympic)

Year	Event	AA	Team	VT	UB	BB	FX
1976	USSR Championships	3rd					2nd
1977	World Cup	3rd		1st
	USSR Cup	1st
	USSR Championships	3rd		1st	2nd	2nd
1978	World Championships	3rd	1st
	World Cup	3rd		1st		2nd	2nd
1979	World Championships		2nd
	European Championships	3rd		3rd		1st	2nd
	USSR Cup	1st
	USSR Championships	1st			3rd	1st	2nd
1980	USSR Cup	2nd

External links

• Natalia Shaposhnikova at the International Gymnastics Federation
• Natalia Shaposhnikova at the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame
• Natalia Shaposhnikova at Gymn Forum
• Natalia Shaposhnikova at Olympics.com
• Natalia Shaposhnikova at Olympic.org (archived)
• Natalia Shaposhnikova at Olympedia (archive)
• GymnasticGreats.com: Whatever happened Natalia Shaposhnikova? at the Wayback Machine (archived 10 October 2012)
• Shaposhnikova Element - animated gif image at the Wayback Machine (archived 21 October 2006)
• Natalia Shaposhikova - Biography & Gallery at the Wayback Machine (archived 4 February 2011)

This article contains information from the website http://www.gymnast.ru/, incorporated into the Wikipedia with permission from its author E. V. Avsenev.