Simona Amânar

Simona Amânar (born October 7, 1979 in Constanţa) is a Romanian gymnast. A seven-time Olympic medalist, she is one of the most accomplished gymnasts in recent decades, as well as the Romanian team leader during the late 1990s and 2000.

Amânar began participating in gymnastics at age 6.

1994

In 1994, her first year on the senior national team, she was known primarily as a team player and contributed to the 1994 World and European Romanian team titles.

1995

She began to excel as an individual performer at the 1995 European Championships, placing 2nd all-around behind Svetlana Khorkina, as well as winning gold on both vault and floor. She continued her success at the World Championships that year, helping to secure the 2nd consecutive World team title for the Romanians, and becoming co-world champion on vault (with all-around champion Lilia Podkopayeva). Simona was in the running to medal, or even win the all-around title, after her powerful floor routine and huge vaults put her in the lead after two rotations. However, she dropped to 4th overall after an average bar routine, and a shaky beam routine. Though Simona was certainly not heralded as a graceful athlete, she was enormously powerful and praised for her ultra-clean form (the latter of which seemed to abandon her in later years and drew much criticism).

1996

Amanar won the silver medal on vault at the individual apparatus World Championships behind teammate Gina Gogean and ahead of Cuban Annia Portoundo. However, the results were highly disputed as Portoundo should have taken gold, Amanar the silver, and Gogean the bronze.

At the 1996 Summer Olympics, Simona was one of the front-runners to contend for several individual medals. However, her Olympics started inauspiciously as she fell off the beam during the compulsories. Though she would later post the highest all-around score during the optionals, Simona still only placed 4th amongst her teammates and did not qualify for the all-around finals. However, in a scenario similar to the 1992 Olympic substitution by the Unified Team of Tatiana Gutsu for Rozalia Galiyeva, Simona replaced her more famous teammate Alexandra Marinescu. Head coach Octavian Belu stated that Simona deserved to compete because she worked harder and was a better athlete than Marinescu. However, the fact that she posted the highest four event total of the entire Olympics, a 39.387 during Optionals, didn't hurt. The decision looked to be the correct one, as she shared the bronze medal with teammate Lavinia Miloşovici.

Strangely enough, however, in both the 96 Olympic All-Around and the 95 World Championship All-Arond, Amanar failed to score over the 9.800 mark on the floor exercise despite well-executed and extremely difficult tumbling. Both times, it was due to problems with her dance elements. In Atlanta, for example, she scored a 9.887 in Optionals (the highest score of the entire Olympics, on any event, for men or women) and then only a 9.737 in the All-Around. She lost a tenth and a half from her potential, a significant amount, largely due to a failure to complete a simple "C" valued dance element, a double turn. Without the error, Amanar would have finished well ahead of her more established compatriots, Gogean and Milosovici. Her failure to score well on the floor was also evident when she failed to qualify for the event finals on floor in Sabae (and then it would happen again two years later at the 1997 World Championships).

In the event finals, Simona finally delivered to her potential on floor at the right time. Her routine earned a 9.850 and the silver medal behing Lilia Podkopayeva and just ahead of Dominique Dawes. But her crowning moment came when she became the Olympic vault champion, largely due to her scoring a 9.875 for an enormous double-twisting Yurchenko vault. She left the 1996 Olympics with four total medals.

1997

Ironically, Simona would again replace a higher performing Marinescu in the 1997 World All-Around Championships. Again proving her coaches just in their decision, she won the silver medal behind Svetlana Khorkina of Russia. She actually performed better and scored higher than Khorkina on three of the four pieces, but the discrepancy between their bars performances gave the title to Khorkina (It is Khorkina's strongest event, and Simona's weakest). Further, Simona's vaulting score was not as high as in previous all-around competition due to a rule change that required the athletes to perform two different vaults in all-around competition. Simona's second vault--a Phelps--was a considerable weakness for her. Nevertheless, she continued her domiance on the vault, becoming the reigning two time World champion and Olympic champion on the event. Romania also won its third straight team title.

1999

Though Amanar continued to be a strong leader and competitor for the Romanian team, she seemingly always placed second or third in the world in major All-Around competitions. Like Gogean and Milosovici before her, she never won the World or Olympic All-Around title for which she so desperately hoped.

The 1999 World Championships were disappointing for her. After leading the team to a fourth consecutive team title, she fell off the bars during the all-around and placed well out of the medals. She also reliquished her vaulting title to Russia's Elena Zamolodchikova, who dominated that event in the following years due to a more difficult second vault - a double twisting Tsukahara. Amanar eventually learned this vault by 2000, but only competed it at Europeans. Simona's younger, more inexperienced teammates carried the banner for the Romanians--Maria Olaru surprisingly won the all-around, and Andreea Raducan won the World title on floor exercise. Simona managed to capture her first ever (and only) World Championship medal on the floor, however, taking home the silver behind Raducan.

2000

At the 2000 Summer Olympics, the Romanians once again edged out the Russians to take the team title--their first since 1984 and their first ever in a non-boycotted Olympics. The truly unprecedented events were yet to unfold. Shockingly, the vaulting horse was set too low by the Olympic organizers before the Women's All-Around. The undisputed favourite for the all-around title, Svetlana Khorkina, fell on her signature vault. Several other gymnasts in the competiton met peril because of this same scenario. Many of them went on to their next event knowing their medal chances were gone, only to later be informed of the error and their chance to vault again. By that point, it was too late. The All-Around competition was useless, and unfortunately no one will ever know what the actual results should have been. The three Romanian women, Raducan, Amanar, and Olaru, managed either to vault well on the faulty vault or to vault after the mistake had been corrected. They swept the invalid medals, with Răducan winning the title, followed by Simona and Maria Olaru.

Everything only became even more bizarre when it was discovered that Răducan had used a cold medicine containing a banned substance. Although she was not banned and her results in other events were allowed to stand, Răducan was stripped of her gold medal which went to Amânar instead. Initially, Simona refused to accept the medal, insisting that Raducan had rightfully earned the title. Teammate Maria Olaru took the same stance when the gold was "awarded" to her, as well. The two eventually reconsidered, deciding instead to bring the medals home to Romania as symbolic victories of the team. Nobody outside of Romania really cared about any of this, as the All-Around had been drastically tainted by an error of Olympic-sized proportions.

In the event finals, Simona had the rare opportunity to defend her Olympic title from four years earlier. However, she stumbled badly while debuting a new vault - a 2 1/2 twisting laid-out Yurchenko, which was then named after her, and her medal hopes were erased. She redeemed herself, in part, by winning the bronze on floor exercise, but may have placed higher had it not been for a step out of bounds on her last tumbling pass.

Career Summary

Throughout her career, Simona was severely criticized for her stoicism and the robotic qualities to her gymnastics. Indeed, she did not possess the same elegant style that favored her longtime nemesis Svetlana Khorkina, and perhaps prevented her from ever winning a major all-around title. Nevertheless, she maintained a hugely successful career at the highest ranks of the sport for over five years, and individual medals were certainly forthcoming. Amanar ranks highly on the list of most medaled gymnasts ever, with 17 World and Olympic medals. She is also considered one of the best vaulters in the history of the sport. Furthermore, in Romanian gymnastics where the top priority is team dominance, Simona played a crucial role in the four straight World team titles and Olympic title which firmly stamped Romania as the number one ranked in the world.

Amânar retired in 2000 after the World Cup finals, and is now married with one son. She still resides in Romania, as of 2006.

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