Marina Lobatch

Marina Vikentyevna Lobatch ( Марина Викентьевна Лобач) (born 26 June 1970 in Smalyavichy, Belarus) was a Soviet Individual Rhythmic Gymnast. She currently lives in Minsk with her husband, Dmitry Bogdanov, and their daughter, Irina, Where she is a coach and judge for the Belarusian Gymnastics Federation. She has been awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples.

Marina started the sport in 1977 at age 7. She had won the gold in the hoop competition and won bronze in the rope and clubs competitions during the 1987 World Championships.

Her biggest success was during the 1988 Seoul Olympics. She had received perfect ten's on all of her routines during the qualifying and final rounds of the all-around competition. Her competitors had also received perfect scores during the finals, but had not received perfect scores in the qualifying round (qualifying scores were divided by two and added onto the final round scores). Their final scores were very close, with Lobatch receiving 60.000, Adriana Dunavska receiving 59.950, and Alexandra Timoshenko receiving 59.975.She is the youngest Olympic Champion in rhythmic gymnastic with 18 years, 3 months and 6 days.Marina retired in 1989 at the age of 19.

In 1993, she went to Lamezia Terme, Italy to prepare her gymnasts, Larissa Lukyanenko and Tatiana Ogryzko for the Italia Serie A. It was in Lamezia Terme that they trained for a little while, and they competed for the local club Gascal in the Serie A. Marina returned to...
Read More