Simona Amânar

Simona Amânar
— Gymnast —
Amânar at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
Personal information
Full name	Simona Amânar
Nickname(s)	Simi
Country represented	Romania
Born	(1979-10-07) October 7, 1979 Constanța, Romania
Height	158 cm (5 ft 2 in)
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Level	Senior International
Gym	Deva National Training Center
Head coach(es)	Octavian Bellu
Assistant coach(es)	Mariana Bitang
Eponymous skills	Amânar (vault)
Retired	2000
Medal record Representing  Romania Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 3 1 3 World Championships 6 4 0 World Cup Final 2 2 1 European Championships 1 1 0 Total 12 8 4 Olympic Games 1996 Atlanta Vault 2000 Sydney Team 2000 Sydney All-Around 1996 Atlanta Floor Exercise 1996 Atlanta Team 1996 Atlanta All-Around 2000 Sydney Floor Exercise World Championships 1994 Dortmund Team 1995 Sabae Team 1995 Sabae Vault 1997 Lausanne Team 1997 Lausanne Vault 1999 Tianjin Team 1996 San Juan Vault 1997 Lausanne All-Around 1999 Tianjin Vault 1999 Tianjin Floor Exercise World Cup Final 1998 Sabae Vault 1998 Sabae Floor Exercise 2000 Glasgow Vault 2000 Glasgow Balance Beam 2000 Glasgow Floor Exercise European Championships 1994 Stockholm Team 1996 Birmingham Team 1996 Birmingham Vault 1996 Birmingham Uneven Bars 1998 St. Petersburg Team 2000 Paris Vault 1998 St. Petersburg All-Around 1998 St. Petersburg Vault 2000 Paris Balance Beam 1998 St. Petersburg Balance Beam 1998 St. Petersburg Floor Exercise 2000 Paris Team

Simona Amânar (Romanian pronunciation: [siˈmona amɨˈnar]; born October 7, 1979) is a Romanian former artistic gymnast. She is a seven-time Olympics medalist and a ten-time World Championships medalist.

Amânar helped Romania win four consecutive world team titles (1994–1999), as well as the 2000 Olympic team title. She is also the 2000 Olympic all-around champion. She has a vault named after her and was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2007.^[1]

1994–95

In 1994, her first year on the senior national team, Amânar contributed to Romania's team titles at the World and European Championships.

She began to excel as an individual performer at the 1995 European Cup, placing second in the all-around behind Svetlana Khorkina of Russia and winning gold on both vault and floor exercise. At the 1995 World Championships, she helped Romania secure its second consecutive world team title and became co-champion on vault (with all-around winner Lilia Podkopayeva of Ukraine). Amânar's powerful floor routine and vaults put her in the lead after two rotations in the all-around, but she dropped to fourth after an average uneven bars routine and a shaky balance beam routine.

1996

Amânar won a silver medal on vault at the 1996 World Championships, behind teammate Gina Gogean and ahead of Cuba's Annia Portuondo-Hatch.

At the 1996 Summer Olympics, Amânar was one of the front-runners for several individual medals, but her Olympics started inauspiciously when she fell off the beam during the compulsories. Though she later posted the highest all-around score in the optionals (39.387), her combined compulsory and optionals scores put her fourth among her teammates, and she did not qualify for the final.^[2] However, in a scenario similar to the Unified Team's substitution of Tatiana Gutsu for Rozalia Galiyeva at the 1992 Olympics,^[3] Amânar replaced her teammate Alexandra Marinescu in the all-around final.^[2] The Romanian head coach, Octavian Bellu, said that Amânar deserved to compete because she had worked harder and was a better athlete than Marinescu. Amânar ended up sharing the bronze medal with teammate Lavinia Miloşovici, behind Gogean.^[2]

In both the 1996 Olympic all-around and the 1995 World Championships all-around, Amânar failed to score over 9.800 on the floor exercise despite well-executed and difficult tumbling. In the Olympics, she scored a 9.887 in the team optionals (the highest score of the entire Olympics on any event, for men or women), but only a 9.737 in the all-around. She did not start from a 10.0 in the all-around—despite having the most tumbling bonus points of anyone at the Games—because her tour jeté half-turn (Strug), a C element, was not completed. Thus, she did not have enough simple A, B, and C skills, and much of her D- and E-rated tumbling had to count as easier elements to fulfill those requirements. Amânar did not perform a double turn in the team optionals or the all-around because it was not necessary as long as she completed her Strug. However, when she failed to complete the Strug, four of her six tenths in D and E elements had to count toward requirements, which left her with only .2 counting toward her bonus. Without the error, Amânar would have finished ahead of Gogean and Miloşovici.

In the event finals, Amânar completed her Strug and added a double turn to fulfill the more stringent Competition III requirements. She earned a 9.850 and the silver medal, behind Podkopayeva and just ahead of Dominique Dawes of the United States. She won the vault final the day before, largely because of her 9.875 score for her double-twisting Yurchenko vault.^[4] She left the 1996 Olympics with four medals, including Romania's team bronze.^[5]

1997–99

Romania won its third straight team title at the 1997 World Championships. Amânar again replaced a higher-scoring Marinescu in the all-around competition and won the silver medal behind Russia's Khorkina, followed by a gold medal on vault.

In the 1999 World Championships, Amânar led the Romanian team to a fourth consecutive title (there was no Worlds competition in 1998). However, she fell off the bars during the all-around and placed well out of the medals. She also lost her vaulting title to Russia's Elena Zamolodchikova, who dominated that event in the following years due to a more difficult second vault: a double-twisting Tsukahara. Amânar won her only medal of the competition on the floor, taking home the silver behind teammate Andreea Răducan.

2000

At the 2000 Summer Olympics, the Romanians edged out the Russians to take the team title—their first since 1984 and their first ever in a non-boycotted Olympics.^[6]

In the all-around, the vaulting horse was set too low by the Olympic organizers, and the favorite for the title, Svetlana Khorkina, fell on her signature vault.^[7] Several other gymnasts fell or stumbled because of the same problem. Many went on to make mistakes on their next event, knowing their medal chances were gone, only to be informed later of the error and their chance to vault again.^[7][8] The three Romanian women either managed to perform well on the faulty vault or vaulted after the mistake had been corrected. They swept the medals, with Răducan winning the gold, Amânar the silver, and Maria Olaru the bronze.^[9]

Răducan was subsequently found to have used a cold medicine containing a banned substance. Although her results in other events were allowed to stand, she was stripped of her all-around gold medal, which went to Amânar.^[10][11] Initially, Amânar refused to accept the medal, insisting that Răducan had rightfully earned the title. Olaru took the same stance when the silver was awarded to her.^[12] However, they eventually reconsidered and decided to bring the medals home to Romania as symbolic victories of the country.^[13] Amânar continued to insist, however, that Răducan was the true Olympic all-around champion.^[14]

In the event finals, Amânar had the opportunity to defend her Olympic vault title from four years earlier. However, she stumbled badly while debuting a new vault (a 2 ¹⁄₂ twisting laid-out Yurchenko, which was then named after her), and did not win a medal. She went on to win bronze on floor exercise after losing points for a step out of bounds on her last tumbling pass.

Legacy

Amânar ranks highly on the list of most medaled gymnasts, with 17 World and Olympic medals. She played a large role in the four consecutive World team titles and Olympic title that established Romania as the top-ranked women's gymnastics team in the world.

The Amânar vault^[15] involves a round-off entry onto the vaulting table followed by a laid-out salto with 2 ¹⁄₂ twists. Amânar first competed this skill at the 2000 Olympics. It has a difficulty score of 6.3 in the women's Code of Points.

Post-retirement

Amânar retired in 2000, shortly after the Olympic Games. She married Cosmin Tabără, a lawyer, on March 9, 2002, in Timişoara, and gave birth to a son, Alexandru Iosif, five months later. She is the vice president of the Romanian Gymnastics Federation.

Competitive history

See also

• List of Olympic female gymnasts for Romania
• List of Olympic medal leaders in women's gymnastics
• List of top female medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

References

External links

• Bio at romanian-gymnastics.com
• List of competitive results at Gymn Forum
• Simona Amânar at the International Federation of Gymnastics
• Amânar (vault skills)

Olympic Champions in Artistic Gymnastics - Women's Team All-Around
1928  Netherlands 1936  Germany 1948  Czechoslovakia 1952  Soviet Union 1956  Soviet Union 1960  Soviet Union 1964  Soviet Union 1968  Soviet Union 1972  Soviet Union 1976  Soviet Union 1980  Soviet Union 1984  Romania 1988  Soviet Union 1992  Unified Team 1996  United States 2000  Romania 2004  Romania 2008  China 2012  United States 2016  United States
2000:  Romania (ROU), Andreea Răducan, Maria Olaru, Simona Amânar, Loredana Boboc, Andreea Isărescu, Claudia Presăcan

World Champions in Artistic Gymnastics – Women's Team Competition
1934:  Czechoslovakia 1938:  Czechoslovakia 1950:  Sweden 1954:  Soviet Union 1958:  Soviet Union 1962:  Soviet Union 1966:  Czechoslovakia 1970:  Soviet Union 1974:  Soviet Union 1978:  Soviet Union 1979:  Romania 1981:  Soviet Union 1983:  Soviet Union 1985:  Soviet Union 1987:  Romania 1989:  Soviet Union 1991:  Soviet Union 1994:  Romania 1995:  Romania 1997:  Romania 1999:  Romania 2001:  Romania 2003:  United States 2006:  China 2007:  United States 2010:  Russia 2011:  United States 2014:  United States 2015:  United States
1994:  Romania (ROM), Simona Amânar, Gina Gogean, Nadia Hațegan, Ionela Loaieș, Daniela Mărănducă, Lavinia Miloșovici, Claudia Presăcan 1995:  Romania (ROM), Simona Amânar, Andreea Cacovean, Gina Gogean, Nadia Hațegan, Alexandra Marinescu, Lavinia Miloșovici, Claudia Presăcan 1997:  Romania (ROM), Simona Amânar, Gina Gogean, Alexandra Marinescu, Claudia Presăcan, Mirela Țugurlan, Corina Ungureanu 1999:  Romania (ROM), Simona Amânar, Loredana Boboc, Andreea Isărescu, Maria Olaru, Andreea Răducan, Corina Ungureanu