An endless gymnast; an outstanding life example

For some, the images of the streets of Paris in battlefield mode represent a deja vu like those of May ‘68 but without romance. For others, those of us who live an important part of our lives in Olympic mode smell like an apocalypse and make it impossible to imagine that, in less than 500 days, hundreds of thousands of fans will walk in a hurry between Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower trying to get from the Beach-Volleyball Stadium to the Taekwondo Stadium.

Perhaps that is why and because we are going through an unprecedented Olympic cycle of only three years that we lost a little perspective on that Japanese miracle of the 21st century that were the Tokyo 2021 games.

People who say a lot from silence, the Japanese had already given a strong message to the world in 1964 when the last torch relay was in the hands of Yoshinori Sakai, a boy born on August 6, 1945 in the prefecture of Hiroshima: his first seconds of life were the last for thousands of compatriots, atomic bombs involved. The ability to overcome doesn’t necessarily involve memory loss.

Almost 50 years later, they made it clear that few societies like theirs would be able to bring together citizens from more than 200 countries while hundreds of borders were still closed even to the most reliable neighbors.

Among an infinite number of images as unpublished as, let’s hope, unrepeatable (the best athletes in the world competing before empty stands), some made it clear that, along with competitive voracity, the desire for glory and even some unfair path, Olympism still has room for awards that seem to be from other times.

It happened with Argentine basketball player Luis Scola, gold medalist in Athens, who, in the face of Australia’s imminent victory against his national team, was paid a spontaneous tribute recognizing his enormity, rival players and coaches in what were already his last minutes as an international player.

And it happened with Oksana Chousovitina, an extraordinary Uzbek gymnast icon of her sport, eternal in jumping and owner of a life story that transcends limits and, at the same time, crosses the history of her discipline.

This woman weighing just under 45 kilos and just over 1m50 began her Olympic career in Barcelona 1992 representing the Unified Team, an artifice created before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Since then, she has never missed this big event again. She did so for the most part under the flag of Uzbekistan, a country that she still represents today. Although numbers don’t measure their real size, they help to simplify admiration among those who don’t deeply understand her sport. Eight Olympic Games, ten World Championships, three Goodwill Games and three Asian Games sail alongside her two Olympic medals, six Asian and eleven world medals.

It was precisely an Asian game that marked a turning point in her life and definitely opened the door to the legend.

Returning from the competitions held in Busan in 2002, she and her husband, the fighter Bakhtier Kurbanov, received an urgent call from her mother from the family apartment in Tashkent: her son Alisher, only three years old, had coughed up blood and was diagnosed with possible pneumonia at the neighborhood hospital.

The reality was devastating. Alisher was actually suffering from leukemia.

Unable to give him treatment in his country, a colleague warned her about the possibility of seeking a solution in Germany. More precisely in Cologne, where they traveled a short time later.

They sold the apartment and a car. Even so, it was only enough for them to cover half of the treatment. The solution came thanks to the solidarity of many people and, above all, to her enormous sporting talent.

“I asked the authorities in my country to allow me to compete for Germany, only in order to raise money that would allow me to complete the treatment. Then I discovered how many more good people than bad there are among us,” Oksana explained some time later.

Indeed, committed to competing for the Turnteam Toyota Club -still doing so today- and to represent Germany at the Beijing games, she gave her nation the silver medal in China. And the German Federation covered the costs of a successful treatment that currently allows Alisher to see his mother from the stands.

More than 30 years after her first success as a junior in the then Soviet Union, Oksana announced that the Tokyo games would represent her last games. After her last jump in the classification of the specialty -she was left out of the eight finalists- the world of gymnastics stopped to pay homage to her. Rivals, coaches, leaders and volunteers gave a standing ovation and every corner of the Ariake Gymnastics Center was moved by what, we imagine, was the closing of an unbeatable race.

Every story has details that escape and heroes who, luckily, break their word.

Not only did Chousovitina not retire, but, weeks ago, she won the bronze medal at the Cottbus World Cup and continued to score points in other events dreaming of winning a place in the Paris 2024 tests.

A final detail reinforces the idea that we are dealing with an unrepeatable phenomenon.

Oksana is 47 years old, 30 years older than many of her rivals, which she also outperforms with singular frequency.