Simona Amânar

Simona Amânar
Full name	Simona Amânar
Nickname(s)	Simi
Country represented	Romania
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Level	Senior International
Gym	Deva National Training Center
Head coach(es)	Octavian Belu
Assistant coach(es)	Mariana Bitang
Eponymous skills	Amânar (vault)
Retired	2000
Medal record Olympic Games 1996 Atlanta Vault 2000 Sydney All-Around 2000 Sydney Team competition 1996 Atlanta Floor exercise 1996 Atlanta All-Around 1996 Atlanta Team competition 2000 Sydney Floor exercise World Championships 1994 Dortmund Team 1995 Sabae Team 1997 Lausanne Team 1999 Tianjin Team 1995 Sabae Vault 1997 Lausanne Vault 1996 San Juan Vault 1997 Lausanne All-Around 1999 Tianjin Vault 1999 Tianjin Floor Exercise European Championships 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 (born October 7, 1979 in Constanţa) is a Romanian gymnast. A seven-time Olympic medalist and a ten-time world medalist she is one of the most accomplished gymnasts in recent decades, as well as the Romanian team leader during the late 1990s and 2000. Simona helped Romania to win four consecutive world team titles (1994-1999) as well as the 2000 Olympic team title. To honour her achievments she was introducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2007. She is also very well known for a vault element named after her, the "Amânar".

Amânar began participating in gymnastics at age 6.

1994

In 1994, her first year on the senior national team, she was known primarily as a team player and contributed to the 1994 World and European Romanian team titles.

1995

She began to excel as an individual performer at the 1995 European Cup, placing 2nd all-around behind Svetlana Khorkina, as well as winning gold on both vault and floor. She continued her success at the World Championships that year, helping to secure the 2nd consecutive World team title for the Romanians, and becoming co-world champion on vault (with all-around champion Lilia Podkopayeva). Simona was in the running to medal, or even win the all-around title, after her powerful floor routine and huge vaults put her in the lead after two rotations. However, she dropped to 4th overall after an average bar routine, and a shaky beam routine. Though Simona was certainly not heralded as a graceful athlete, she was enormously powerful and praised for her ultra-clean form (the latter of which seemed to abandon her in later years and drew much criticism).

1996

Amânar won the silver medal on vault at the individual apparatus World Championships behind teammate Gina Gogean and ahead of Cuban Annia Portuondo-Hatch.

At the 1996 Summer Olympics, Simona was one of the front-runners to contend for several individual medals. However, her Olympics started inauspiciously as she fell off the beam during the compulsories. Though she would later post the highest all-around score during the optionals (39.387), Simona still only placed 4th amongst her teammates and did not qualify for the all-around finals. However, in a scenario similar to the 1992 Olympic substitution by the Unified Team of Tatiana Gutsu for Rozalia Galiyeva, Simona replaced her teammate Alexandra Marinescu, which was legal at the Atlanta Olympics although it had not been in Barcelona. Head coach Octavian Belu stated that Amânar deserved to compete because she worked harder and was a better athlete than Marinescu. However, the fact that she posted the highest four event total of the entire Olympics, a 39.387 during Optionals, didn't hurt. The decision looked to be the correct one, as she shared the bronze medal with teammate Lavinia Miloşovici.

Strangely enough, however, in both the 96 Olympic All-Around and the 95 World Championship All-Around, Amânar failed to score over the 9.800 mark on the floor exercise despite well-executed and extremely difficult tumbling. Both times, it was due to problems with her dance elements. In Atlanta, for example, she scored a 9.887 in Optionals (the highest score of the entire Olympics, on any event, for men or women) and then only a 9.737 in the All-Around. She lost a tenth and a half from her potential, a significant amount, largely due to a failure to complete a simple "C" valued dance element, a double turn. Without the error, Amanar would have finished well ahead of her more established compatriots, Gogean and Milosovici. Her failure to score well on the floor was also evident when she failed to qualify for the event finals on floor in Sabae (and then it would happen again two years later at the 1997 World Championships).

In the event finals, Amânar finally delivered to her potential on floor at the right time. Her routine earned a 9.850 and the silver medal behind Lilia Podkopayeva and just ahead of Dominique Dawes. But her crowning moment came the day before when she became the Olympic vault champion, largely due to her scoring a 9.875 for an enormous double-twisting Yurchenko vault. She left the 1996 Olympics with four total medals, including Romania's team Bronze.

1997

Ironically, Amânar would again replace a higher performing Marinescu in the 1997 World All-Around Championships. Again proving her coaches just in their decision, she won the silver medal behind Svetlana Khorkina of Russia. She actually performed better and scored higher than Khorkina on three of the four pieces, but the discrepancy between their bars performances gave the title to Khorkina (It is Khorkina's strongest event, and Simona's weakest). Further, Simona's vaulting score was not as high as in previous all-around competition due to a rule change that required the athletes to perform two different vaults in all-around competition. Simona's second vault--a Phelps--was a considerable weakness for her. Nevertheless, she continued her dominance on the vault, becoming the reigning two time World champion and Olympic champion on the event. Romania also won its third straight team title.

1999

Though Amânar continued to be a strong leader and competitor for the Romanian team, she seemingly always placed second or third in the world in major All-Around competitions.

The 1999 World Championships were disappointing for her. After leading the team to a fourth consecutive team title, she fell off the bars during the all-around and placed well out of the medals. She also relinquished 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. Amanar eventually learned this vault by 2000, but only competed it at Europeans. Amânar's younger, more inexperienced teammates carried the banner for the Romanians--Maria Olaru surprisingly won the all-around, and Andreea Răducan won the World title on floor exercise. Amânar managed to capture her first ever (and only) World Championship medal on the floor, however, taking home the silver behind Raducan.

2000

At the 2000 Summer Olympics, the Romanians once again edged out the Russians to take the team title--their first since 1984 and their first ever in a non-boycotted Olympics. The truly unprecedented events were yet to unfold. Shockingly, the vaulting horse was set too low by the Olympic organizers before the Women's All-Around. The undisputed favourite for the all-around title, Svetlana Khorkina, fell on her signature vault. Several other gymnasts in the competition met peril because of this same scenario. Many of them went on to their next event knowing their medal chances were gone, only later to be informed of the error and their chance to vault again. By that point, it was too late. The three Romanian women, Răducan, Amânar, and Olaru, managed either to vault well on the faulty vault or to vault after the mistake had been corrected. They swept the medals, with Răducan winning the title, followed by Amânar and Maria Olaru.

Everything only became even more bizarre when it was discovered that Răducan had used a cold medicine containing a banned substance. Although she was not banned and her results in other events were allowed to stand, Răducan was stripped of her gold medal which went to Amânar instead. Initially, Amânar refused to accept the medal, insisting that Răducan had rightfully earned the title. Teammate Maria Olaru took the same stance when the gold was awarded to her, as well. The two eventually reconsidered, deciding instead to bring the medals home to Romania as symbolic victories of the team. Amânar later returned the gold medal to her teammate Răducan. Perhaps even more strange is the fact that a few years later, the substance that Raducan tested positive for, was removed from the banned substance list. Although Răducan intends to file paperwork with the IOC, Amanar is still credited as the 2000 All-Around champion.

In the event finals, Amânar had the rare opportunity to defend her Olympic 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 her medal hopes were erased. She redeemed herself, in part, by winning the bronze on floor exercise, but may have placed higher had it not been for a step out of bounds on her last tumbling pass.

Career Summary

Throughout her career, Amânar was criticized for her stoicism and the robotic qualities to her gymnastics. Indeed, she did not possess the same elegant style that favored her longtime nemesis Svetlana Khorkina, and perhaps prevented her from ever winning a major all-around title. Rather, she was a power athlete, showing exceptional difficulty on vault and floor but with less strength on bars and beam. Nevertheless, she maintained a hugely successful career at the highest ranks of the sport for over five years, and individual medals were certainly forthcoming. Amânar ranks highly on the list of most medaled gymnasts ever, with 17 World and Olympic medals. She is also considered one of the best vaulters in the history of the sport. Furthermore, in Romanian gymnastics where the top priority is team dominance, Amânar played a crucial role in the four straight World team titles and Olympic title which firmly stamped Romania as the number one ranked in the world.

Post Retirement

Amânar retired in 2000 shortly after the Olympics, saying it was the right time to retire. She married Cosmin Tabără, a lawyer, on 9 March 2002, in Timişoara. She gave birth to a son, Alexandru Iosif, five months later. She still resides in Romania, as of 2006.

External links

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