Yana Batyrshina

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Farkhadovna and the family name is Batyrshina.

Yanina "Yana" Farkhadovna Batyrshina (Russian: Янина "Яна" Фархадовна Батыршина; born 7 October 1979) is a former individual rhythmic gymnast who competed for Russia. She is the 1996 Olympics All-around silver medalist, two time (1995,1997) World All-around bronze medalist, two-time European (1996, 1995) All-around silver medalist, the 1998 European All-around bronze medalist and 1996 Grand Prix Final All-around champion.

Yana Batyrshina
Personal information
Full name	Yanina Farkhadovna Batyrshina
Nickname(s)	Yana
Country represented	Russia
Born	(1979-10-07) 7 October 1979 (age 45) Tashkent, Uzbek SSR, Soviet Union
Hometown	Moscow
Height	165 cm (5 ft 5 in)
Weight	46 kg (101 lb)
Discipline	Rhythmic gymnastics
Club	Gymnastics Center Novogorsk
Head coach(es)	Irina Viner
Retired	1998
Medal record Representing  Russia Rhythmic Gymnastics Olympic Games 1996 Atlanta All-Around World Championships 1995 Vienna Ball 1995 Vienna Team 1997 Berlin Rope 1997 Berlin Team 1996 Budapest Ribbon 1997 Berlin Clubs 1995 Vienna All-around 1997 Berlin All-around European Championships 1997 Patras Ribbon 1998 Porto Rope 1996 Asker All-around 1996 Asker Ball 1997 Patras Rope 1997 Patras Clubs 1998 Porto Hoop 1998 Porto Ribbon 1998 Porto All-around 1998 Porto Team Junior European Championships 1993 Bucharest Rope 1993 Bucharest Clubs 1993 Bucharest All-Around 1993 Bucharest Ball 1993 Bucharest Ribbon European Cup Final 1995 Telford Ribbon 1995 Telford All-around 1995 Telford Clubs 1995 Telford Rope 1995 Telford Ball Grand Prix Final 1995 Deventer Hoop 1995 Deventer Ball 1996 Vienna All-around 1997 Deventer Ribbon 1997 Deventer Hoop 1995 Deventer Clubs 1995 Deventer Ribbon 1995 Deventer All-around

She was awarded the Medal of the Order For Merit to the Fatherland 2nd class (1997).^[1]

Personal life

Batyrshina is of Tatar and Jewish descent.^[2] She studied physical education at the Kharkov Institute. She is married to Azerbaijani-Jewish businessman Timur Weinstein; they have two daughters and one son together.

Career

Batyrshina started gymnastics training at 5 years old when a rhythmic gymnast coach approached her father and told the family she was ideal gymnastics material. At 9 years of age, Batyrchina moved to Russia with then Uzbek coach Irina Viner, who became the Russian national team head coach.^[3]

Batyrchina burst onto the international scene in 1993, when she finished second all-around at the European Junior Championships. She also won gold in the individual apparatus finals with rope and clubs, and silver with ball and ribbon.

In 1995, Batyrshina made her senior international breakthrough in Grand Prix events, collecting a total of 15 medals. At the 1995 World Championships, she won the bronze medal in all-around and also took home golds for the team competition and ball. Her results fluctuated in 1996, but she still managed to take the silver medal for the all-around and ball at the 1996 European Championships. At the event finals of 1996 World Championships, she won the silver medal in ribbon.

Batyrshina competed at the 1996 Summer Olympics, but she had a rough start at the preliminaries. She wept bitterly after several errant catches left her sitting in 13th place in preliminaries but since the top 20 advanced to semifinals, she redeemed her poor preliminary results and set her up perfectly for finals. But during her last event exercise, ribbon, she lost focus in the midst of a simple hand-to-hand exchange and dropped the apparatus. Batyrshina scored 9.683, putting her into second place overall ahead of Ukrainian Olena Vitrichenko.

Batyrchina polished off her 1996 season with a win in the all-around at the 1996 Grand Prix Final (tied with Yekaterina Serebrianskaya), a huge coup considering the depth of the field. She parlayed her success into a medal-winning 1997, including several Grand Prix golds. Despite her success and desire to continuing competing through the 2000 Olympics, 1998 presented a new challenge for Batyrshina in the form of up-and-coming new Russian teammate Alina Kabaeva. Kabaeva would go on to win the 1998 European Championships, while Batyrshina would struggle with ribbon and finish third in the all-around. Batyrshina picked up three more medals in apparatus finals with a gold in rope, silver with hoop, and bronze with ribbon but, according to coach Viner, Batyrshina was beginning to feel that there was not enough room for both her and Kabaeva at the top.^{[citation needed]} Batyrshina quietly retired a short time after Europeans, at 19 years of age.

After her retirement, Batyrshina began coaching. In 1999, she was briefly invited to serve as a trainer at the UNOPAR gym in Londrina, Brazil, helping prepare the Brazilian group for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

On 15 February 2015, a star-studded gala was held in Russia for the 80th founding anniversary of Rhythmic Gymnastics. The venue was held in the historical Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. Among those who performed at the gala were Russian former Olympic champions, Olympic medalists and World champions including: Batyrshina, Evgenia Kanaeva, Yulia Barsukova, Irina Tchachina, and Daria Dmitrieva.^[4]

Records

• Youngest rhythmic gymnast to win the Grand Prix Final all-around title (1996 Vienna) at 16 years of age.

Influence

Batyrshina is arguably^[who?] one of the most popular rhythmic gymnast of her decade. Her winning style has altered the direction of rhythmic gymnastics in Russia as well as the rest of the world.^[5] Well known for her undeniable flexibility and personality, Batyrchina was also hailed for a top-notch level of difficulty and high, oversplit leaps and jumps. She included many flexibility skills in her routines, the majority of which highlighted her spectacularly elastic back.^[6]

Detailed Olympic results

Year	Competition Description	Location	Music [7]	Apparatus	Score-Final	Score-Qualifying
1996	Olympics	Atlanta		All-around	39.382	37.748
			Gypsy Dance music from Don Quixote by Leon Minkus	Ribbon	9.683	9.316
			Moorish Dance from Othello by Machavariani	Rope	9.850	9.816
			Young Prince and Princess from Scheherazade by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov	Ball	9.916	9.266
			Act 1 – Appearance Of Kitri / Act 1 – Variation: Kitri music from Don Quixote by Leon Minkus	Clubs	9.933	9.350

See also

• List of select Jewish gymnasts

References

• Catalano, Robin. Gymnastics Greats, Yanina Batyrshina (RUS).

1. Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 6 января 1997 года № 1
2. Taylor, Paul (2004). Jews and the Olympic Games: The Clash Between Sport and Politics : with a Complete Review of Jewish Olympic Medallists. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 9781903900871.
3. "Яна Батыршина: "Только попробуйте назвать меня дурой!"". Собеседник. 9 July 2003. Archived from the original on 11 September 2003.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
4. "As Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics turns 80, legends to celebrate in style in St. Petersburg". International Federation of Gymnastics. 17 February 2015..
5. О происхождении Яны Батыршиной. Яна Батыршина. Биография, Sem40
6. Catalano, Robin. "gymnastic greats".
7. "Batyrchina RG music list". rgforum.

External links

• Yana Batyrshina at the International Gymnastics Federation
• Yana Batyrshina at r-gymnastics.com (in Russian)
• Official website (in Russian)
• Yana Batyrshina on Instagram