Athletistic / Olympic Games. Rhythmic gymnastics made its debut at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984. The first Olympic champion, in the absence of the national team of the USSR and the countries of the socialist bloc, was Canadian Laurie Fang. At the next eight Olympic Games, the gold medal in the individual all-around competition invariably went to the representatives of the USSR/member countries of the Union. The streak, which we liked, was interrupted in 2021 at the Tokyo Games.

But the results of rhythmic gymnastics competitions at the Olympic Games in the capital of the Land of the Rising Sun still cause bewilderment and are criticized by many experts and specialists. By the will of the judges, a huge scandal erupted at these competitions, and its main characters were Averina’s sisters, Dina and Arina.

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In the qualifying round, Dina took first place, earning 106,300 points based on the sum of four elements. Arina, who took second place in the preliminary round, was only 0.175 points behind her. Everything went exactly as planned: the Russians confidently headed to the gold and silver medals of the Olympic Games, clearly ahead of all the others. It is important to note that the third place in the qualifying competition with an impressive gap of 3.2000 points from Dina was won by Lina Ashram from Israel. It was on August 6.

But the very next day, on August 7, 2021, everything changed. The events described below went down in the history of world sports, but their color took on faded colors. The final of the individual all-around competition began with the hoop. After the first type of program, the leadership was taken by the already familiar Lina Ashram, who scored 27,550 points for her program. She was 0.350 points ahead of Dina Avirina, and Arina was immediately behind the leader by 0.7 points. Already at that time, Russian commentators working in gymnastics competitions began to be surprised at what was happening. If the Israeli’s scores were quite adequate to the program presented to her, then the Averin sisters were simply not credited for some groups of elements.

Arina Averina / Photo source: Reuters

The next type of program was the ball, where everything continued in the same spirit: the Averins and the Ashram played without visible errors, but the Russians again received lower marks from the judges than the Israelis. Already at that time, the Russian team had started to protest, but this did not bring any visible changes.

In the exercises with a mace, Ashram again received the highest marks and before the final event of the program – the ribbon – she was ahead of Dina by 0.850 points and Arina by 1.950 points.

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During the exercises with a ribbon, a small tragedy happened with Arina Averina – during the execution of the program, she tied a knot, which is why she had to change the subject. The judges severely punished her for this mistake, awarding Arina only 19.550 points. These scores did not even allow Arina to qualify for bronze, because before the performance of her sister and Lina Ashram, she found herself in second place, losing 0.600 points to Belarusian Alina Gornosko.

The first of the contenders for Olympic gold was Ashram. The Israeli lost her ribbon and seemed to have missed the victory herself. The judges rated her performance at 23.300 points, which left Russia with a chance to win the final victory. Dina Averina, as it seemed to almost all experts, fans, commentators and specialists, did everything perfectly. Then it was up to the judges. That’s where the fun began. Without explanation, Dina waited more than five minutes for her evaluation of the exercises on tape. It was as if someone was calculating the difference in points required for another athlete to win. When Dina’s result appeared on the scoreboard of the Olympic Palace, the Russian grabbed her face and cried – she became second, losing to Ashram by a mocking score of 0.150 points.

Linoy Ashram / Photo source: CIO

Such results caused a huge scandal. The president of the All-Russian Federation of Rhythmic Gymnastics (VFKhG), the legendary Irina Viner, was the harshest judge.

– The Technical Committee of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) must say its harsh word. If the Ashram had not suffered a loss, there could have been chatter, but the loss of the ribbon has eliminated all questions about the purity of the judging. In rhythmic gymnastics, beauty and art should prevail, but now everything has turned into a nightmare and a complete absence of rhythmic gymnastics. With such a judgment, rhythmic gymnastics should be removed from the Olympic program. Or punish the judges very severely through the International Olympic Committee” said Wiener immediately after the competition.

Just two weeks after the competition, after all the formalities of the awards ceremony and the IOC’s approval of the results, the FIG finally made a statement regarding the judging of the individual all-around competition at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The international federation stated that the judges’ work was impartial and that the tournament results were therefore officially approved and not subject to review. Period.

Then the backstage games began, ending with the suspension of Irina Viner herself from participating in competitions under the auspices of the FIG for two years. On March 6, 2022, the Gymnastics Ethics Foundation (GEF) disqualified her and decided that the sanctions against the head of the WFHG would begin to count one day after the lifting of the ban on Russian athletes from international competitions, introduced after the start of the SVO in Ukraine. Formally, Wiener was sanctioned for putting pressure on Natalya Kuzmina, who was then head of the FIG Technical Committee. However, it seems that the international federation only needed one reason.

Irina Viner / Photo source: roscongress.org

The result of the individual all-around competition at the 2020 Olympic Games remained unchanged: Linoy Ashram is the champion, Dina Averina with silver, Arina Averina with a wooden medal. To date, this result has not been given an unambiguous assessment. Unfortunately, there was no happy ending for the Averin sisters: the SVO soon began, the IOC made a politicized decision regarding Russian athletes, the gymnasts were deprived of the opportunity to participate in international competitions and, as a result, did not have the opportunity to qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris (France). Against this background, Dina and Arina Averina announced their retirement from sports in February 2024.

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Even though the Averina sisters did not reach the top of Olympus, they left a memory of themselves in the hearts of millions of gymnastics fans. We can safely call them legends of world sports.

Nikita Serbakov, Athletistic



Athletistic