Floor Exercise Trivia Quiz

Answer: Oksana Chusovitina

Henrietta Onodi of Hungary took the silver with a 9.950. Romania's Cristina Bontas, the USA's Shannon Miller, and the Unified Team's Tatiana Gutsu all scored 9.912, so there was a three-way tie for the bronze. The Unified Team's Oksana Chusovitina finished in 7th place.

Answer: Elena Gomez

Although Gomez had the honor of becoming the first Spanish woman to win a medal on the world stage, many feel that that honor should have gone to Esther Moya. Moya gave a flawless performance in floor exercise finals at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and yet was still inexplicably scored below the Romanian Simona Amanar, who stepped out of bounds.

Answer: Nelli Kim

Comaneci actually had performed the skill before in several meets prior to the 1976 Olympic Games, but she had a sore ankle in Montreal and chose to leave the double salto out of her routine. In that same Games, Russian gymnast Nelli Kim, the second woman ever to score a perfect ten in Olympic competition, had the first double salto in an Olympic Games with her tuck double-back.

Answer: Vera Caslavska

Caslavska won four golds and two silvers at that Olympic Games, and under extraordinary circumstances. 1968, as many remember, was the year of the "Prague Spring," and when the Soviets invaded, Caslavska was warned that she was in danger of being arrested as a dissident. With the Olympics only two months away, she escaped to a rural mountain town, practicing her routines out in the countryside by swinging from tree branches and tumbling in a meadow.

The government eventually agreed to let her join the rest of her Czechoslovakian Olympic team in Mexico City.

Answer: Ludivine Furnon

Furnon accomplished this feat at the 1995 World Championships in Sabae, Japan. Coming into the floor final as an alternate, she took the opportunity into her own hands and came away with her historic bronze medal. Furnon's story is even more amazing considering that she started gymnastics relatively late - she won her World Championships medal only three years after she began the sport!

Answer: a power outage

Romanian Ecaterina Szabo needed a perfect 10 to clinch the gold and overtake American Julianne McNamera. However, just as she was to begin her routine, the arena went black. When the lights came back 8 minutes later, Szabo delivered. Her gold on floor exercise was her fourth gold medal at that Games (the others were earned in team competition, vault, and beam).

Answer: Elise Ray

Many of the gymnasts at that Games complained about the floor mat, saying that it was too hard and not very springy, making it especially difficult to rebound out of tumbling passes. Their complaints were borne out by the extremely high number of mistakes on floor exercise - in the women's all-around competition, the percentage of gymnasts who stepped out of bounds hovered around 55%! Whether this was due to nerves or the equipment itself is for you to decide. Lobaznyuk actually had had trouble getting the rotation she needed in her last warm-up before she competed, so she went a little too hard in her actual routine and stepped back and out. Karpenko's fall probably was really more due to nerves than anything else - she knew she was in a position to take the all-around title and faltered.

She landed her Arabian double front solidly, but then she panicked, tripped over her own feet, and stumbled out of bounds, putting her hands down. Zamolodchikova, for whatever reason, couldn't get the usual bounce off of the floor that she needed to rebound.

She underrotated the punch front, then stumbled backwards and sat down out of bounds.

Answer: Yelena Mukhina

Although the moves are not named after them, Priakhina originated the full-in full-out, Strazheva brought the double front to women's floor, and Groshkova was famous for her double full-in, back out. The tucked full-in full-out is named for Romanian Daniela Silivas, who did it first in Olympic competition, and Priakhina was performing it earlier at the 1986 Jr. European Championships and 1987 European Championships.

Answer: Yes

Yes, it does. The deduction for not having music is 5 tenths of a point. However, the Code of Points does not prohibit men from using floor exercise music, even though they generally don't (exhibitions and professional showcases excluded).

Answer: 0.1