Elena Has Won the Olympics Already

It was clear that Elena would have stayed home during the games, if the UEG and FIG did not take decision about sanctioning the judges of the Europeans 2000 in Zaragoza. There after the qualification parts of the competition, the bronze medallist from Atlanta Elena Vitrichenko was put on 19th (!) place. In the general opinion, the gymnast was judged incorrectly and the organizer of this judge verdict were Deryugins.

The sanctions were very tough: 6 judges are suspended for 1 year, Irina Deryugina includingly, all the rest 26 judges received a warning. In this case among the judges even only one honest person was not found! This case is the first one in RG history. The Ukrainian Olympic Committee could not ignore this and its decision to send Vitrichennko to the Olympic Games was logical. Fruthermore in the rating of FIG the best Ukrainian gymnasts are Erofeeva and Vitrichenko.

But the victory of Vitrichenko can serve as a big knock-out for the RG as an Olympic sport. Because the judging scandal showed all the dirt of the most gracios sports of all. The RG is really a dirty occupation, the subjectivity reached horrifying sizes. Even the people in the audience who did not understand anything about the sport could see in Zaragoza that the judges were giving 10s to "disabled" gymnasts who could not even walk and did not move with the tact of the music. But the spectators are people who do not understand. The people who understand, the gymnastics specialists, needed 2 months to make an investigation and analysis in order to come to the conclusion: "the 19th place of Vitrichenko is corresponding to the level of her program and performance".

As a secret which is known to the whole world, we would like to tell that IOC president Samaranch cannot stand the thought of RG in the Olympic program because this sport became dirty and as such does not want to become clean. The leader of the Russian Rg Federation Nina Shabaeva said seriosly that IOC is really discussing the idea of taking RG out of the Olympic program in 2004, and in this case Alina Kabaeva will be the last Olympic champion of RG. We would like to add, that Albina and Irina Ivanovna insist that there was no judging plot against Vitrichenko...

And we would like to finish with the words of the Russian coach Elvira Averkovich: "Elena Vitrichenko had a little decline of the form but now she is again in a good sports form, she has an additional advantage - her image. When on the carpet appears an older gymnast and she performs her compostiions in a different way, precisely and inspired, there are a few people who can resist her impression. And the judges are also people."