, nickname= , country= , formercountry= Russia , birth_date= , birth_place=

Norilsk Norilsk ( rus, Нори́льск, p=nɐˈrʲilʲsk, ''Norílʹsk'') is a closed city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located south of the western Taymyr Peninsula, around 90 km east of the Yenisey River and 1,500 km north of Krasnoyarsk. Norilsk ...

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, hometown=Russia , death_date= , death_place= , height=155 cm (5'1") , discipline=

Artistic gymnastics Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines on different apparatuses. The sport is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which designs the Code of Points and regulates ...

, level=Senior Elite Gymnast , natlteam= 1978–86 (

URS Urs (from ''‘Urs'') or ''Urus'' (literal meaning wedding), is the death anniversary of a Sufi saint, usually held at the saint's dargah (shrine or tomb). In most Sufi orders such as Naqshbandiyyah, Suhrawardiyya, Chishtiyya, Qadiriyya, etc ...

) , club= , gym= , collegeteam= , headcoach= , assistcoach= , formercoach= , music= , eponymousskills= Yurchenko, Yurchenko loop , retired= , show-medals = yes , medaltemplates= Natalia Vladimirovna Yurchenko (russian: Наталья Владимировна Юрченко) (born 26 January 1965) is a retired

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

artistic gymnast, who won the women's all-around gold medal at the 1983 World Championships. Renowned for her innovative and daring gymnastics, she is best known as the originator of the Yurchenko vault family, which is a round-off back handspring entry onto the vault, and then performing a series of twists and flips off.

Personal life

Yurchenko was born on 26 January 1965 in

. In 1999, she immigrated to the United States. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Igor Sklyarov.

Career

Yurchenko was coached by Vladislav Rastorotsky at the Dinamo sports society in

Rostov on Don Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East Eu ...

. Her first international competition was the 1978 Junior Friendship Tournament, where she placed 5th all-around and won gold medals in the team competition and on bars. In the same year she debuted in the senior Riga International meet, earning the bronze on the floor. Four years later, she won the all-around title at the USSR Championships, USSR Cup, at the prestigious ''

Moscow News ''The Moscow News'', which began publication in 1930, was Russia's oldest English-language newspaper. Many of its feature articles used to be translated from the Russian language '' Moskovskiye Novosti.'' History Soviet Union In 1930 ''The ...

'' tournament and the World Cup. In 1983, she won almost all gold medals (except for the floor exercise) at the University Games and the USSR Championships. She also became the all-around World Champion, achieving two perfect 10s in the process. She qualified to all the event finals, but withdrew from the uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise finals after an injury during the vault final, leaving with two world championship titles. At the

Friendship Games The Friendship Games, or Friendship-84 (russian: Дружба-84, ''Druzhba-84''), was an international multi-sport event A multi-sport event is an organized sporting event, often held over multiple days, featuring competition in many differ ...

Olomouc Olomouc (, , ; german: Olmütz; pl, Ołomuniec ; la, Olomucium or ''Iuliomontium'') is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 99,000 inhabitants, and its larger urban zone has a population of about 384,000 inhabitants (2019). Located on t ...

, Yurchenko returned from injury, battled with Olga Mostepanova and managed to win the gold medal on vault and team competition. In 1985, she once again won almost all events at the University Games (except

vault Vault may refer to: * Jumping, the act of propelling oneself upwards Architecture * Vault (architecture), an arched form above an enclosed space * Bank vault, a reinforced room or compartment where valuables are stored * Burial vault (enclosure ...

and

balance beam The balance beam is a rectangular artistic gymnastics apparatus and an event performed using the apparatus. Both the apparatus and the event are sometimes simply referred to as "beam". The English abbreviation for the event in gymnastics scoring i ...

), and contributed to the team's gold medal at the World Championships. Yurchenko was awarded the title of Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR. She retired from gymnastics in 1986, but made an appearance at the 1991 World Professional Championships in

Fairfax, Virginia The City of Fairfax ( ), colloquially known as Fairfax City, Downtown Fairfax, Old Town Fairfax, Fairfax Courthouse, FFX, or simply Fairfax, is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth ...

Eponymous skills

The Yurchenko vault is named after her in the Code of Points. The Yurchenko family is now a group of vaults based on the entry she used in her original Yurchenko vault (a round-off onto the table, followed by a back tuck). The Yurchenko loop is another skill she originated, but it no longer appears in the Code of Points.

Post-competitive career

Yurchenko coached at LVSA, a gymnastics club in Pennsylvania, for almost nine years, at

Parkettes National Gymnastics Training Center Parkettes National Gymnastics Training Center, or Parkettes for short, is a gymnastics club located in Allentown, Pennsylvania that had its beginnings in the early 1960s with a middle school gymnastics program in Allentown that gradually grew into ...

in Allentown, Pennsylvania and at the Lakeshore Academy of Artistic Gymnastics in Chicago Illinois. In June 2015, she opened her own gymnastics academy, C.I.T.Y. Club Gymnastics Academy, in Chicago's South Loop.

Achievements

References

External links and sources

Natalia Yurchenko
Official Site
Yurchenko Gymnastics
Official Site
C.I.T.Y. Club Gymnastics Academy
Official Site *
Video of Natalia Yurchenko performing Yurchenko vault
- 1985 Summer Universiade in Kobe, all-around {{DEFAULTSORT:Yurchenko, Natalia 1965 births Living people People from Norilsk Russian female artistic gymnasts Soviet female artistic gymnasts Originators of elements in artistic gymnastics World champion gymnasts Medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships Sportspeople from Krasnoyarsk Krai