Top 150 Olympic Athletes: #52 - Mariya Gorokhovskaya

Mariya Gorokhovskaya

USSR

Artistic Gymnastics

Overall Ranks

#12 among Gymnasts

#6 among Female Gymnasts

#6 among Soviet Olympians

#4 among Female Soviet Olympians

Olympic Results

1952

Individual All-Around - Gold

Team - Gold

Team Portable Apparatus - Silver

Floor Exercise - Silver

Vault - Silver

Uneven Bars - Silver

Balance Beam - Silver

Total

Events - 7

Gold - 2

Silver - 5

Mariya Kondratyevna Gorokhovskaya was born on October 17, 1921 in Yevpatoriya, USSR, which is now part of Ukraine. Due to World War II, and the Soviet Union not participating in the Olympics until 1952, she was 30 years old before she made her Olympic debut.

Those Olympics were held in Helsinki, and 6 of the 7 events were held concurrently. In the team event, the Soviet Union finished with the top score in 3 of the 4 sections, and had 7 of the top 9 scorers overall, so they ended up winning the gold medal over Hungary by 4.67 points.

In the individual all-around, Gorokhovskaya ended up with the top overall score, beating Nina Bocharova, her teammate, by 0.84 points to win another gold medal. In the floor exercise, she won the silver medal, coming in only behind Agnes Keleti (#110) of Hungary in that event. 

In the vault, the Soviets had the top 6 overall, and again, Gorokhovskaya came in second and got the silver, .01 points behind Yekaterina Kalinchuk. In the uneven bars, she finished 0.14 points behind Margit Korondi of Hungary to take home yet another silver. In the balance beam, she was beaten by Bocharova by 0.09 points, which earned her a 4th individual silver.

The next day, in the team portable apparatus event, which is basically what we know as rhythmic gymnastics today, the Soviets came in behind Sweden by 1.2 points, meaning that Gorokhovskaya had won her 5th silver medal, which is still the most for any athlete in a single Olympics in history. 

She competed just once more, at the 1954 World Championships, where she won a pair of medals before retiring and becoming a coach. In 1990, she emigrated to Israel, where she coached until she passed away on July 22, 2001 in Tel Aviv. She was the first woman ever to win 7 medals in a single Olympics, and it would be 69 years before her feat was matched. Even though she only competed in the Olympics once, she was so great in that appearance that she is definitely one of the greatest Olympians of all time.