Natalya Yurchenko is a multiple world champion in all-around both in the team championship and in the singles. She has the title of Honored Master of Sports of the USSR. The athlete is called the legend of domestic gymnastics.
Biography
The future winner of many championships was born in 1965, in January. The birthplace of Natalia is the city of Norilsk. From childhood, the girl showed her predisposition to gymnastic exercises, she was a very active child. At the age of 7, the young athlete entered the local gymnastics section.
In her native Siberia, Yurchenko trained in harsh conditions, sometimes she even had to dig out the entrance to the gym from the snow in order to practice. When the girl turned 11 years old, she was offered a place in one of the most famous and specialized gymnastic schools.
The new place was in the city of Rostov-on-Don. Parents were forced to stay in their native place, and Natalia was placed in a boarding school. At that time, the girl’s new coach, Vladislav Rastorotsky, assumed the main educational responsibilities. He was sure of the great athletic potential of the gymnast and never doubted that he could grow an Olympic winner from her.
Sports career
Yurchenko’s success was not long in coming: after several years of working with an eminent coach, she was able to get a gold medal at the international tournament among juniors, her strengths were performances on the uneven bars. Unfortunately for the athlete, at the age of 15, she received a serious injury, due to which she went for rehabilitation for a whole year.
In 1982, Natalia returned to the world of sports, immediately making a revolution in the world of gymnastics. Together with the star trainer, she became the founder of her own style, which no athlete of that time could repeat. In the same year, she took the world championship, she managed to show brilliant results on all gymnastic apparatuses, and for almost every performance she received the highest mark of judges.
In the future, her sports career only continued to gain momentum, until 1984 she won victory after victory, often with a crushing score for opponents. At the age of 19, Yurchenko planned to make her debut at the US Olympic Games, but due to the ban, all Soviet athletes of that time did not go anywhere.
In parallel with competitive activity, the girl received a pedagogical education, her goal was to become a sports teacher. Further, Natalia’s dream came true - in 1986, after the completion of her professional career, she gave herself to the coaching direction of education.
