Kateryna Serebrianska Катерина Серебрянська
Personal information
Alternative name(s)	Ekaterina Serebrianskaya
Country represented	Ukraine
Born	(1977-10-25) 25 October 1977 Simferopol, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Height	180 cm (5 ft 11 in)
Discipline	Rhythmic gymnastics
Retired	1998
Medal record International gymnastics competitions Event 1st 2nd 3rd Olympic Games 1 0 0 World Championships 8 6 4 European Championships 10 5 3 European Cup Final 3 0 0 Grand Prix Final 3 0 0 Goodwill Games 2 1 2 Total 27 12 9 Representing  Ukraine Rhythmic Gymnastics Olympic Games 1996 Atlanta All-around World Championships 1993 Alicante Rope 1994 Paris Hoop 1994 Paris Ball 1994 Paris Clubs 1994 Paris Ribbon 1995 Vienna All-around 1995 Vienna Ball 1996 Budapest Ball 1992 Brussels 3 ropes/3 balls 1993 Alicante All-around 1993 Alicante Hoop 1993 Alicante Team 1995 Vienna Rope 1996 Budapest Rope 1993 Alicante Ball 1993 Alicante Ribbon 1995 Vienna Team 1995 Vienna Clubs European Championships 1994 Thessaloniki Ball 1994 Thessaloniki Ribbon 1994 Thessaloniki Team 1996 Asker All-Around 1996 Asker Rope 1996 Asker Ball 1996 Asker Ribbon 1996 Asker Team 1997 Patras Rope 1998 Porto Hoop 1996 Asker Clubs 1997 Patras Clubs 1997 Patras Ribbon 1998 Porto Team 1998 Porto Rope 1994 Thessalonika Clubs 1997 Patras All-around 1998 Porto Ribbon European Team Championships 1997 Paris Team European Cup Final 1995 Telford All-around 1995 Telford Rope 1995 Telford Clubs Grand Prix Final 1994 Vienna All-around 1995 Deventer All-around 1996 Vienna All-around Goodwill Games 1994 Saint Petersburg Clubs 1994 Saint Petersburg Ribbon 1994 Saint Petersburg All-around 1994 Saint Petersburg Hoop 1994 Saint Petersburg Ball

Kateryna Serebrianska^[a] (born 25 October 1977 in Simferopol) is a Ukrainian former individual rhythmic gymnast. She is the 1996 Olympics gold medalist, the 1995 World All-around champion, a two time (1995,1996) European All-around champion, and three time Grand Prix Final All-around champion.

Life and career

Serebrianska was born in Simferopol, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union. She started gymnastics in 1982 at age 4, with her mother Liubov as her coach at the Gratsia club in Simferopol. She later moved to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, to train at the Deriugina School.

In 1994, Serebrianska participated at the 1994 Goodwill Games in Saint Petersburg and won gold medals in clubs and ribbon, a silver medal in all-around and bronze medals in hoop and ball.^[1]

Serebrianska tied Bulgaria's Maria Petrova for the all-round title at the 1995 World Championships in Vienna, Austria. She also won several individual apparatus titles: rope at the 1993 World Championships in Alicante, Spain; hoop (tied with Belarusian Larissa Lukyanenko and Bulgarian Maria Petrova), ball (tied with Ukrainian teammate Olena Vitrychenko), clubs and ribbon in the 1994 World Championships in Paris, France; ball (tied with Russians Yanina Batyrchina and Amina Zaripova) at the 1995 Worlds in Vienna, Austria; and again in 1996 in Hungary. Her sweep of all 4 event finals golds at the 1994 World Championships is one of only two times in history this has been achieved, the other being Alexandra Timoshenko, and was all the more miracle after major mistakes in the All Around final put her in 4th place after being favored to win (ironically Timoshenko in 1991 also failed to win the All Around title, coming 2nd to teammate Oksana Skaldina, prior to sweeping the event final golds). She also won the 1996 European all-round title, together with the team gold, and gold on rope, ball and ribbon finals.

Serebrinaskaya at the 1996 World Championships

As the gold medal favorite after her dominance in 1994, 1995, and early 1996, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Serebrianska's technical strength, cleanliness, difficulty, and mature presentation won her the gold medal, although she had a slight fumble with the ribbon before her final toss. She was ahead of her closest rival, Russia's Yanina Batyrchina by 0.150 points going into the ribbon routine, who competed before her and dropped the ribbon.

Serebrianska, Alina Kabaeva, Olexandra Tymoshenko and Evgenia Kanaeva are the only rhythmic gymnasts to win World, European and Olympic titles.

At the 1997 European Championships in Greece, Serebrianska dropped a club at the end of her all-round clubs routine (9.825), but scores of 9.950 on both the rope and ribbon, and a 9.912 on hoop gave her an accumulated score of 29.637 and hence the bronze medal by 0.012 ahead of French competitor, Eva Serrano. In the apparatus finals, she won the gold in the rope event with a perfect 10.000, and took silver in the clubs and ribbon events. She did not compete at the 1997 World Championships due to an illness suffered by her mother. In her final major competition, the 1998 European Championships, she reached each of the apparatus final events. She won gold in the hoop final (9.950) and silver in rope (9.933). She also won bronze in the ribbon event (9.933), tying with the same score as Evgenia Pavlina of Belarus and Yanina Batyrchina of Russia, but winning the medal due to the new tie-breaker scoring system. She placed 6th (lost in the tie-breaker to Belarusian, Yulia Raskina) in the all-round final.

Serebrianska retired from rhythmic gymnastics in 1998.

Records

• Serebrianska became the first female rhythmic gymnast to hold the European, World, and Olympic all-round titles at the same time. This record was tied by Alina Kabaeva at the 2004 Athens Olympics and Evgenia Kanaeva at the 2012 London Olympics.
• Serebrianska has won gold medals in all of the apparatus in a single World Championship ( and has won on all five apparatus: rope, hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon), a record tied only by Bianka Panova, Oxana Kostina and Evgenia Kanaeva.
• Serebrianska is tied with Evgenia Kanaeva and Lilia Ignatova for three World gold medals in ball.
• Serebrianska is only one of the three rhythmic gymnasts ( with Alina Kabaeva and Evgenia Kanaeva ) to win all the Grand-slam titles (Olympics, World Championships, European Championships, World Cup Final and Grand Prix Final).

Routine music information

Detailed Olympic results

Notes and references

References

External links

• Ekaterina Serebrianskaya at the International Gymnastics Federation
• Kateryna Serebrianska at Olympedia