Doha: Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina competed solely on vault at the 2017 World Championships in Montreal, Canada, and qualified for the event final, taking fifth.
Self-belief and confidence seemed to be her biggest assets as the 42-year-old has announced that she will compete in all-around this year onwards, and already has her eye on the Asian Games in August.
“Since January, I’ve been preparing all-around and will be performing all-around events at all competitions, all four apparatus,” said Oksana, who won a team gold with Uzbekistan at the 1992 Barcelona Games.
It means that her fans will get to watch her in all the four women’s events at the 11th FIG Artistic Individual World Cup here from March 21-24.
She is probably the oldest gymnast competing at the highest level and, don’t even try to convince her that she is ‘old’ because the word doesn’t exist in her dictionary.
Not only does she have five moves named after her in international gymnastics’ Code of Points, the ‘grand lady’ of modern gymnastics is still hoping to win a medal at the elite level.
Oksana’s energy and amazing fitness level gives her much younger opponents a run for their money, and it won’t change a bit when she descends at the Aspire Dome, which will also host this year’s FIG World Championships in October.
Australia’s Emily Little and Slovenia’s Teja Belak — gymnasts half her age — found it a tad difficult to outshine her in Doha last year as the Uzbek walked away with vault gold.
“I still remember all my old elements and even learned one new element on the uneven bars,” she had said in an interview.
Oksana recently said in an interview that she is preparing for her record-breaking eighth Olympics in Tokyo 2020.
If you are still wondering what keeps her ticking, do visit Doha during the FIG event.