Oksana Omeliantchik

I've been searching for this for ages; I actually have a copy of the 1985 World Championships, as televised on ABC, but it's on beta...and I no longer have a betamax video player. So by accident, while checking a comment left by someone about my videos, I noticed that some people have been posting videos of Oksana Omeliantchik's routines.

To this day, she remains my favorite female gymnast. Most gymnasts look rather wooden and too technical in their floor routine and in the choreography...like everything is just filler for the tumbling. But Oksana is extremely expressive in showing off her personality (if the video quality were better, you could see her facial expressions and infectious, elfin smile), and the choreography fits it like a glove. Her tumbling, at the time, in 1985 was extraordinary- and even seeing it today, the combinations in her passes are beautiful to behold. Sometimes I'll watch old tapes, see a transition move or skill, and wonder, "I miss that." Because many routines sometimes get built around fulfilling the code of points- so that what was at one time original sets a trend, so that they begin looking like carbon copy routines and combination skills that everyone else is doing.

Both videos are of the same floor routine at the 1985 World Gymnastics Championships. The first one is not great in quality, but is from the ABC telecast; the 2nd looks to be from a personal camcorder (but I could be wrong, since I found someone else had uploaded the same exact footage), but the picture is clearer- lacking the close ups, though.

Bonuses routines of her on the other apparatus are below.





Bars:



Beam:



Vault: