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| Maria posted this picture of Mischa the bear, mascot of the 1980 Olympics |
And today, it's Maria Filatova's special day - Happy Birthday, Maria!!
Maria won gold medals at both the 1976 Montreal and 1980 Moscow Olympics. She was 1978 World Cup all around champion, and four times won gold medals as part of the Soviet team at Worlds and Olympics. In 1981 she won the silver medal all around at the Moscow World Championships, where many people felt she merited the gold. She was a great fan favourite and a great in her own right, competing during a vintage era of classical gymnastics, alongside fellow legends such as Liudmilla Tourischeva, Olga Korbut and Nelli Kim.. You can read more about her here and at her official site, here.
Maria is a good Leo woman, positive and sunny, full of encouragement and happy words for those around her. She was always a great team mate, and still is today, as a coach working at her own club, Kour Gymnastics, in New York. See her here at about 8.55 as she encourages team mate and eventual Olympic champion, Elena Davydova.
And you can appreciate here, her beautiful floor routine from the 1980 Olympics.