Alina Kabaeva
Alina Kabaeva
By: Ella Gutman
Start out simple, how many people can touch their hands to their toes? What about their heads to their feet while bending back? Jumping rope for five minutes non-stop? Easy peasy right? Time to get a little more complicated, how many people can touch their heads to their bums? What about sitting off two chairs in oversplits? Training for a consecutive five hours a day? Which by the way adds up to 36 hours a week, since the age of four? How many people can handle it? Kabaeva, a hero? How? Why? She is just another girl that won the Olympics, big deal, right? Wrong, she was striving for that one goal for 22 years just to become the gold medalist at the Olympics. It has been a tough journey for her. She has been accused of doping, in other words overdosing pills. However that did not stop her from becoming a champion.
Alina Kabeva comes from a family of athletes. Her father was a professional football player, however here it is called soccer Alina and her family would often travel around Ubekastan and Russia for his games, and her mother was a basketball player.
Star on the rise, Alina Kabaeva was born in Taskent, Uzbekastan in 1987. She started rhythmic gymnastics at the age of four, and after that, non-stop exhausting training began for this little one. When she first started gymnastics, Kabaeva's coach did not like her one bit. At first many coaches did not like her because they thought that she was too "heavy" & "ugly"' (http://www.lonympics.co.uk). Shortly after her and her family moved to Russia and once she began to train with her new coach Irina Veiner, that is when the star was on the rise. Irina Veiner liked Kabaeva instantly, "I could not believe my eyes, when I first saw her. "The girl has the rare combination of two qualities crucial in Rhythmic Gymnastics - flexibility & agility." (Irina Viner, www.lonympics.co.uk). In 1998 Alina took the gold at the European title at the age of fifteen, her victory was very
By: Ella Gutman
Start out simple, how many people can touch their hands to their toes? What about their heads to their feet while bending back? Jumping rope for five minutes non-stop? Easy peasy right? Time to get a little more complicated, how many people can touch their heads to their bums? What about sitting off two chairs in oversplits? Training for a consecutive five hours a day? Which by the way adds up to 36 hours a week, since the age of four? How many people can handle it? Kabaeva, a hero? How? Why? She is just another girl that won the Olympics, big deal, right? Wrong, she was striving for that one goal for 22 years just to become the gold medalist at the Olympics. It has been a tough journey for her. She has been accused of doping, in other words overdosing pills. However that did not stop her from becoming a champion.
Alina Kabeva comes from a family of athletes. Her father was a professional football player, however here it is called soccer Alina and her family would often travel around Ubekastan and Russia for his games, and her mother was a basketball player.
Star on the rise, Alina Kabaeva was born in Taskent, Uzbekastan in 1987. She started rhythmic gymnastics at the age of four, and after that, non-stop exhausting training began for this little one. When she first started gymnastics, Kabaeva's coach did not like her one bit. At first many coaches did not like her because they thought that she was too "heavy" & "ugly"' (http://www.lonympics.co.uk). Shortly after her and her family moved to Russia and once she began to train with her new coach Irina Veiner, that is when the star was on the rise. Irina Veiner liked Kabaeva instantly, "I could not believe my eyes, when I first saw her. "The girl has the rare combination of two qualities crucial in Rhythmic Gymnastics - flexibility & agility." (Irina Viner, www.lonympics.co.uk). In 1998 Alina took the gold at the European title at the age of fifteen, her victory was very