What Her Fans Says of Her

By Janet

Perhaps she is one of the most underrated gymnasts, especially for being around for such a long time. Gina Gogean burst onto the scene all the way back in the 1992 Europeans and Olympic Games. Although not a contender for the titles back then, her talent and clean routines showed much promise for the future. Indeed, it only took until the 1993 World Champions to show the judges that she was a competitior for top spots and major titles. There she finished second in the all around, a mere .007 behind leader Shannon Miller.

She herself is an amazing vaulter and tumbler, with power only few in the world have. While many know little about her success, for she has long played second fiddle to Romanian stalwart Lavinia Milosovici, she did manage to outperform her teammate and friend in the 1994 Chunichi Cup, along with other very good gymnasts including Dina Kochetkova, Svetlana Khorkina, and Dominique Dawes. While a missed beam mount dropped her from second to fifth at the 1995 European Cup, she still managed to take third on bars. She was an important factor in the 1995 Sabae Team World Championships, where Romania won the gold. Despite a scarry fall on beam, in which she missed her back foot on a layout step out and hit her head on the beam going into another back handspring, she railed with her always reliable 1 1/2 twisting Yurchenko and a 9.9 on her powerful floor routine. She once again proved that she was one of the best in 1996, with individual golds on vault and floor exercise heading into the Olympics. Truly, with her double layout mount, mixed pass of front-full through to two tuck fronts, and tucked full-in dismount put her as one of the best tumbling in the world. Gogean took even took the 1995 and 1996 World titles for her floor performances. She also proved to the world that she is as tough-as-nails, with her inspiring Olympic Games, despite having appendicitis surgery only 5 weeks earlier. Even greater, she took home four medals for her performance, a true pleaser to all her fans. Her team pulled together for the bronze, while Gogean silently took home the all-around silver medal among all the hub-bub of many other gymnasts’ disasters. Finally, she proved that her consistency and age pays off, as she took the vault and beam bronzes. Truly, consistency and toughness are the trademarks of Gina Gogean.