A medal bar or medal clasp is a thin metal bar attached to the ribbon of a military decoration, civil decoration, or other medal. It is most commonly used to indicate the campaign or operation the recipient received the award for, and multiple bars on the same medal are used to indicate that the recipient has met the criteria for receiving the medal in multiple theatres.

When used in conjunction with decorations for exceptional service, such as gallantry medals, the term "and bar" means that the award has been bestowed multiple times. In the example, "Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, VC, OM, DSO and Two Bars, DFC", "DSO and two bars" means that the Distinguished Service Order was awarded on three separate occasions. A common British convention is to indicate bars by the use of asterisks; thus, DSO** would denote a DSO and two bars.

Bars are also used on long service medals to indicate the length of service rendered.

The two terms are used because terms "bar" and "clasp" both refer to two parts of the medal; the indicator discussed in this article, and the part of the medal connected to the ribbon.

History[link]

Prior to the early 19th century, medals and decorations were only awarded to ranking officers; occasions existed where medals were presented to soldiers, but these were often private efforts. One exception was the Army Gold Medal issued to higher ranking participants in the Peninsular War. A medal was given for service, with a clasp for each battle fought. After four clasps were earned the medal was turned in for a cross with the battle names on the arms, and additional clasps were then added. The maximum was achieved by the Duke of Wellington, with a cross and nine clasps.

Over the next 40 years, it became customary for governments to present a medal to all soldiers and officers involved in a campaign. These medals were often engraved with the names of the major battles the recipient had fought in during the campaign. The main disadvantages of this system were that new medals had to be created for each campaign or war, and that it was impossible to tell at a glance if the recipient was only a participant in the campaign overall, or if he had been involved in one or several major actions. (The first gallantry medal to be awarded to ordinary British soldiers was the Victoria Cross in 1856.)

The Sutlej Medal was the earliest medal to use such bars. It was awarded to British Army and Honourable East India Company soldiers who fought in the First Anglo-Sikh War between 1845 and 1846. The first battle the recipient participated in would be engraved on the medal itself. If the recipient had participated in multiple engagements, silver bars bearing the name of each additional battle were attached to the medal's ribbon. This method of notation evolved again on the Punjab Campaign medal, where the standard medal was awarded to all that had served during the campaign, with bars produced for the three major battles; the Battle of Chillianwala, the Siege of Multan, and the Battle of Gujarat.

The creation of bars led to the development of 'General Service' medals, which would be presented to any soldier serving in a general region or time frame. Bars would be awarded to denote the particular campaign or war the recipient fought in. The 1854 India General Service Medal was awarded to soldiers over a 41-year period. Twenty-three clasps were created for this award, becoming one of the more extreme uses of this system. The British Naval General Service Medal, was authorized in 1847 with some 231 clasps (of which about 10 were never issued) for actions ranging from relatively minor skirmishes to certain campaigns and all full-fledged battles between 1793 and 1840.

The Crimea Medal was issued with ornate battle bars. Since then the general trend has been to have simple horizontal devices.

Types of Bar[link]

• Campaign Bars or Battle Bars are used to denote the particular campaign, battle, or region the recipient operated in to receive the award. This is the most common use of medal bars on military decorations. In the United Kingdom, campaign bars are usually known as clasps and when the ribbon alone is worn they are sometimes indicated by rosettes, although this is not commonly authorised. Examples of ones that were issued are the "under enemy fire" clasp on the 1914 Star and the Battle of Britain clasp on the 1939-45 Star. In the United States Military, Service stars are used to indicate participation in multiple battles or campaigns, although the World War I Victory Medal had an extensive system of bars. In World War II, a unique variation was the Wake Island Device, a "W" placed on the ribbons of the Navy and Marine Corps Expeditionary Medals. This was issued to represent the medal bar for fighting in the Battle of Wake Island.

• Achievement Bars are used to indicate a particular or additional feat associated with the medal. As an example, the Wintered Over Device attached to the United States Antarctica Service Medal indicates that the recipient performed a tour of duty during the Antarctic winter. An unusual device the United States once issued was a tiny airplane, the Airlift Device for long service in the Berlin Airlift. This was added to the Army of Occupation Medal and the Navy Occupation Service Medal.

• Service Bars indicate the length of service a person has provided to the organisation presenting the award. This type of bar is most commonly found on long service medals for the military and emergency services.

• Multiple Award Bars display the number of times a decoration for merit or distinguished service has been awarded. In the United States, Oak Leaf Clusters (Army and Air Force) and Stars (Navy and Marine Corps), rather than bars, are issued for receiving the same award multiple times. In the United Kingdom, each bar is indicated by a rosette when the ribbon alone is worn (or, in the case of the Victoria Cross or George Cross, by an additional miniature model of the cross itself, since one of these is always worn on the ribbon of these two awards).

References[link]

• Dorling, Henry Taprell (1974). Ribbons and medals : the world’s military and civil awards (New Enlarged Edition (11th edition) ed.). Suffolk, England: W.S. Cowell Ltd. ISBN 0-540-07120-X. 

Look up -bar, Bar, or bar in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Bar may refer to:

Food and drink[link]

• Bar (establishment), a retail establishment that serves alcoholic beverages
• Bar (counter), the counter at which drinks are served by a bartender
• Dessert bar, a type of cookie

Law[link]

• Bar (law), in a legal context has three possible meanings: the division of a courtroom between its working and public areas; the process of qualifying to practice law; and the legal profession
• Bar examination, an examination conducted at regular intervals to determine whether a candidate is qualified to practice law in a given jurisdiction
• Bar association, a professional body of lawyers. Some bar associations are responsible for the regulation of the legal profession in their jurisdiction; others are professional organizations dedicated to serving their members; in many cases, they are both

Science and computing[link]

• Bar (computer science), a metasyntactic variable
• Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of dark cloud near the horizon
• Bar (unit), a unit of pressure defined as 100 kilopascals
• BAR domain, a protein domain
• Base Address Register, a concept in computer hardware design
• Another term for the landform known as a shoal
• Bar (landform)
• Bar (river morphology), in a river is an elevated region of sand or gravel that has been deposited by the flow

Media and entertainment[link]

• Bar (dance), a form of dance that originated in Western Armenia and continue to be found in modern Turkey. The word "Bar" (պար) means dance in the Armenian language
• Bar (music), a segment of time in musical notation
• The Bar (painting), by John Brack
• The Bar (book) (1906), a book by Margery Williams
• Bay Area Reporter, a newspaper
• Biblical Archaeology Review, a journal
• The Bar (TV series), a Swedish reality television program
• The Bar (radio network), a 24-hour music network produced by Waitt Radio Networks

Places[link]

• Bar (river), France
• Bar, Corrèze, France
• Bar, Meuse, France, former seat of the Counts and Dukes of Bar
• Bar, Montenegro, a coastal town in Montenegro. It has a population of 13,719 (2003 census). Bar is the centre of Bar Municipality and a major seaport of Montenegro
• Bar, Tibet
• Bar, Ukraine
• Bár, Hungary
• Bar, a historic duchy of both the Holy Roman Empire and the crown of France; see Counts and Dukes of Bar

People[link]

• Bar Refaeli (born 1985), Israeli model
• Ellen Bar, New York City Ballet soloist
• Moshe Bar (investor) (born 1971), Israeli technologist, author, investor and entrepreneur
• Moshe Bar (neuroscientist), neuroscientist, associate professor in psychiatry and radiology, and director of the Cognitive Neuroscience laboratory at Harvard Medical School
• Shirley Temple Bar, drag queen from Dublin, Ireland
• Haim Bar (born 1954), former Israeli footballer
• Amos Bar (1931–2011), Israeli author, teacher, and editor
• Israel Bar (1912–1966), convicted of espionage by Israel in 1961
• Walter Bar (born 1938), Swiss fencer
• Shlomo Bar (born 1943), Israeli musician, composer, and social activist
• Alon Bar (born 1966), Israeli/American filmmaker
• Sergiu Bar (born 1980), Romanian footballer
• Zvi Bar (born 1935)
• Noma Bar (born 1973), Graphic Designer
• Bar, a patronymic prefix in Aramaic and Hebrew

Punctuation[link]

• Bar (diacritic), a line through a letter or other grapheme
• Vertical bar, a punctuation symbol

BAR[link]

• Austro-Bavarian language, ISO 639-3 code BAR
• Transport & automotive
  • Bangor and Aroostook Railroad, reporting mark BAR
  • British American Racing, a Formula One constructor
  • The California Bureau of Automotive Repair
  • Harvey House Railroad Depot, station code BAR
  • IATA code for Baker Army Air Field (abandoned), Baker Island, United States Minor Outlying Islands
• Weapons
  • Browning BAR, a semi-automatic rifle produced in Belgium and Japan
  • M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle, an American family of automatic rifles and light machine guns

Other[link]

• A dowel, pole, or beam used as a support structure
• Bar (heraldry), an ordinary consisting of a horizontal band across the shield
• Medal bar, a thin metal bar attached to the ribbon of a military decoration, civil decoration, or other medal
• Bar Confederation, an 18th-century Polish association
• A type of gatehouse in city walls of the Middle Ages
• Bar mitzvah
• Bar (form), a cell phone form factor

See also[link]

• Barr (disambiguation)
• Barre (disambiguation)
• Bars (disambiguation)
• Bär
• Barr (placename element), a pre-Indo-European linguistic root meaning 'wooded hill', 'natural barrier'

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Epke Zonderland
Personal information
Full name	Epke Jan Zonderland
Country represented	Netherlands
Born	(1986-04-16) April 16, 1986 (age 26) Lemmer, Netherlands
Hometown	Heerenveen, Netherlands
Discipline	Men's artistic gymnastics
Level	Senior International
Years on national team	Netherlands
Medal record World Championships Silver 2010 Rotterdam Horizontal Bar Silver 2009 London Horizontal Bar European Championships Gold 2011 Berlin Horizontal Bar Silver 2011 Berlin Parallel Bars Silver 2010 Birmingham Horizontal Bar Bronze 2007 Amsterdam Parallel Bars World Cup Gold 2007 Glasgow Horizontal Bar Gold 2006 Tehran Horizontal Bar Silver 2006 Glasgow Horizontal Bar

Epke Jan Zonderland (born April 16, 1986 in Lemmer) is a Dutch gymnast. He started exercising gymnastics at the age of four. He has two brothers (Herre and Johan) and one sister (Geeske) who are also international gymnasts.^[1]

Zonderland reached his first international success as a junior in 2004. At the European Junior Championships in Ljubljana he became fourth at the all-around event and he won a silver medal at the horizontal bar.^[1] That same year he also became Dutch national all-around champion by taking over the title from his older brother Herre.^[1]

In 2005 at the World Championships in Melbourne Zonderland and Jeffrey Wammes were the first ever Dutch gymnasts in the history of the sport to qualify themselves for the all-around final.^[2] Zonderland eventually ended up on the 11th position.^[1] In that same year at the European Championships he only reached the 15th position, which was a disappointment considered his World Championship result.^[1]

After his success in 2005 he continued in 2006 by reaching the final of the horizontal bar competition during the European Championships in Volos, where he became 6th.^[1] At the World Cup meeting in Glasgow at the same discipline he won the silver medal and in Tehran, Zonderland claimed his first World Cup win and the gold medal.^[1] That year he also became Dutch national all-around champion for the second time in his career.^[1]

In 2007 he competed in both the European and the World Championships. At the European Championships in Amsterdam he reached a unique performance by finishing sixth in the all-around event, the highest ever position by a Dutch gymnast.^[1] During the same Championships he also won the bronze medal at the parallel bars. Later, in September at the World Championships in Stuttgart Zonderland finished in 4th position at the horizontal bar, which earned him a qualification for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.^[1][3] Later in 2007 he won his second World Cup event at the horizontal bar in Glasgow.^[1] In 2009, he won the silver medal in High Bar at the 2009 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. Therefore he was named Dutch Sportsman of the Year. In 2010, he earned the silver medal on High Bar.

External links[link]

Gymnastics portal

• Official website
• Epke Zonderland at Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique

References[link]

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (July 2011)

Svetlana Khorkina
Personal information
Country represented	Russia
Born	(1979-01-19) January 19, 1979 (age 33)
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Retired	2004
Medal record Olympic Games Gold 1996 Atlanta Uneven Bars Gold 2000 Sydney Uneven Bars Silver 1996 Atlanta Team Silver 2000 Sydney Team Silver 2000 Sydney Floor Silver 2004 Athens All-Around Bronze 2004 Athens Team World Championships Gold 1995 Sabae Uneven Bars Gold 1996 San Juan Uneven Bars Gold 1997 Lausanne All-Around Gold 1997 Lausanne Uneven Bars Gold 1999 Tianjin Uneven Bars Gold 2001 Ghent All-Around Gold 2001 Ghent Vault Gold 2001 Ghent Uneven Bars Gold 2003 Anaheim All-Around Silver 1994 Brisbane Vault Silver 1994 Brisbane Uneven Bars Silver 1995 Sabae All-Around Silver 1997 Lausanne Team Silver 1997 Lausanne Balance Beam Silver 1997 Lausanne Floor Silver 1999 Tianjin Team Silver 2001 Ghent Team Bronze 1994 Dortmund Team Bronze 1999 Tianjin Floor Bronze 2001 Ghent Floor

Svetlana Vasilyevna Khorkina (Russian: Светлана Васильевна Хоркина, born January 19, 1979 in Belgorod, Russia) is a popular Russian gymnast and seven-time Olympic medalist, who is now a deputy at the Russian State Duma. With an unprecedented nine gold, eight silver, and three bronze World Championships medals, she is one of the most successful female gymnasts of her era and has been cited as a fan favorite in various polls in gymnastics magazines.^[1] Khorkina is also notable because she was able to continue competing and winning medals for more than a decade, participating in three Olympics and three changes to the Code of Points. She won her final World Championships all-around title at the age of 24 in 2003 which tied her with Věra Čáslavská as the second oldest female World Champion, second to Larisa Latynina who won her second World All Around title in 1962 at the age of 27. In her career she won 47 World,Olympic and European medals. Khorkina won more medals in major All-Around Championships than any other gymnast — male or female - 10 ( 7 Gold,3 Silver).

Khorkina is known for her expressive dance, extreme difficulty, and innovative routines.^[2] She has also been heavily criticized for bad sportsmanship and is notorious for proclaiming herself the winner in events where she did not win.^[3][4] Khorkina is known for being a "diva," but has embraced such charges, stating "I don't mind. I wouldn't have been called a diva or a queen if I wasn't creative."^[5]

At 1.65 m (5'5"), Khorkina was unusually tall for her sport. Known for her long, elegant lines, she was discouraged from gymnastics because of her height, but with the help of her lifelong coach Boris Pilkin, she created new moves to accommodate her height and exploit her strengths. She has an unprecedented 8 moves named after her in the Artistic Gymnastics Code of Points. Her most successful apparatus was the uneven bars, where she won a total of two Olympic and five World Championships titles between 1995 and 2001. She was also the first gymnast to win three all-around titles at the World Championships.^[6] Khorkina won at least one gold medal at every World Championships and Olympic Games between 1995 and 2003.

Sports career[link]

1994-1995[link]

Khorkina won her first senior international medals at the 1994 World Championships in Brisbane: a silver medal on vault introducing a round-off ½-on, piked Cuervo off skill; and another silver on uneven bars (her routine included a Markelov release, to be named the 'Khorkina' for women's event).

She was even more successful at the European Championships later that year. Here, she tied for silver in the all-around with teammate Dina Kochetkova and won bars outright. Khorkina also competed at the Goodwill Games and Team World Championships that year. Her first All-Around win came at the 1995 European Cup, where she also won medals on vault, uneven bars and in the floor exercise. She was expected to be a top contender for All-Around gold at the World Championships later that year. She omitted a triple twist in her floor exercise instead pulling off only a double. This resulted in low scoring for the routine, but solid performances on beam and vault and a stellar showing on the bars helped her to clinch a silver medal behind Ukrainian Lilia Podkopayeva. In the uneven bars final, Khorkina won the gold medal with an incredible 9.90, beating Mo Huilan of China into second place.

1996[link]

Prior to the Olympics, Svetlana retained both her World and European titles on bars, and also helped the Russians to team silver at the European Championships in Birmingham, as well as taking bronze on vault. A fall from beam in the all-around, prevented her from medalling finishing 6th overall, not the first time this would happen to Svetlana.

Thanks to her recent successes, Khorkina was considered to be a top contender for the All-Around gold going into the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, USA, and the Russian team was looking stronger than it had since the break-up of the USSR. However, the competition proved to be a disappointment both for her and for the Russian team. Svetlana and the other more experienced members of the team, Rozalia Galiyeva and Dina Kotchetkova, performed strongly, but the younger athletes made several mistakes, seemingly overwhelmed by both the intense noise from the crowd and the strong performances from the US team. There was to be no consolation in the All-Around. Khorkina performed solidly on floor, beam and vault, but dropped out of contention for a medal when she fell from the uneven bars on a clear underswing half-turn transition from the low bar to high bar, a skill named after her; she finished in 15th place. However, she saved her Olympics by winning the gold on bars, much to her delight, and took the only gold for the Russian women's gymnastics team in Atlanta.

1997–2000[link]

Khorkina became the one to watch, with long lean lines and top acrobatic and execution skills. Her physical glamor of blonde hair and grey eyes competed with her emotional ambitions and intensely patriotic but forthright personality.^{[citation needed]}

Like her compatriot Aleksei Nemov, Khorkina's performances over the next four years were uneven. Khorkina might perform solidly or accede to the pressure that felled many other gymnasts. Scoring was a hot topic. In the 1997 World Championships in Lausanne, changes in the Code of Points were expected to negatively affect Khorkina, but she clinched her first world all-around title after a stellar finish on the bars, earning her the highest score of the championship. She beat Olympic vault champion Simona Amânar into second place, a scenario that was also repeated in the 1998 European Championships.

In the two years after winning the world title, Khorkina tempered excellence with occasional inconsistency. Yet her skills were difficult and innovative in all events, especially on the uneven bars and balance beam. On the bars, she continued to dominate; she was soon nicknamed the "Queen of the Bars".^{[citation needed]}

Khorkina won the European All-Around title in 1998, but faltered during the All-Around in the Goodwill Games. She entered the 1999 World Championships as a favorite, but finished well out of the medals after a disaster on beam. The Russian team as a whole could not stick a gold medal performance and to make things worse, the Russian team lost the gold medal when Khorkina stepped off the beam in the final performance of the last rotation. She continued her winning streak on bars, however, winning her fourth consecutive world title.

2000 Olympic Games[link]

Khorkina entered the 2000 Sydney Olympics in Sydney, Australia as the favorite for the All-Around title. Despite her disappointment in Tianjin, she had retained her European all-around title and had beaten most of the gymnasts who could rival her for the all-around title. After preliminaries in the Olympics, she held a large lead on the pack. She unveiled a very difficult vault that had never been seen before — not even in practice. She stuck the vault — a Khorkina II — in the team competition. She also performed well in the floor exercise and uneven bars, qualifying to both event finals. Her score did allow her to qualify for the Balance Beam final, but was unable to compete in the final as she was the third highest Russian in qualifications behind Lobaznyuk and Produnova — only two gymnasts per country may compete in the event finals. The rest of her team were also successful in preliminaries, beating world champions Romania comfortably, and the stage seemed set for Russian glory.

However, they had a nightmare in the team finals. Khorkina fell from bars, Elena Produnova sat down her vault, and disastrously both Elena Zamolodchikova and Yekaterina Lobaznyuk fell from the beam. The first three errors were not entirely disastrous, as at that time the lowest score on every apparatus was dropped, so one fall alone did not ruin a team's chances. Still, while the less renowned gymnasts on the team managed solid scores, it was not enough. Despite a near perfect floor rotation to wind up the competition, the Russians finished 0.2 behind Romania. Without the errors, they would have been comfortably ahead, which would have given Russia their first ever team title in women's gymnastics. Though it was the beam that really took Russia out of the running, had Khorkina hit bars and received the same score as she did in event finals, the Russians would have taken the title by a mere five thousands of a point. The initial errors hurt the Russian squad's chemistry and caused finger pointing on who was to blame for losing the team title. This set Khorkina against the rest of her teammates, who spoke to and consoled each other but ignored Khorkina. Khorkina removed her silver medal as soon as she stepped down from the podium. For the second Olympics running, her team were bitterly disappointed with their silver.

Before the All-Around competition began, the vault was accidentally set 5 cm (2 inches) too low—highly significant in a sport where the success of an element rests on spatial awareness and very small margins. A number of gymnasts made uncharacteristic errors, including Elise Ray and Annika Reeder, the latter being too injured even to continue. Khorkina complained about the vault to an Australian official after the warm-up but was ignored. It was not until Australian Allana Slater echoed Khorkina's sentiments in the next rotation that the error was corrected. Khorkina had been in the lead after the first rotation, but came to the mis-measured vault in the second and crashed on her first attempt. Psychologically devastated by this, she then fell in her signature apparatus, the uneven bars.^[4] Shortly afterward, she was formally informed that the height of the vault had been corrected, and these who were affected were allowed to perform their vaults again, but their scores on the other apparatus would stand. As that would still leave her out of the running for a medal, let alone the All-Around title, Khorkina declined the opportunity and finished 10th, storming out of the area in tears. Her scores on bars and vault from the preliminaries, plus what she received on beam and floor in the all-around, would easily have won her the Olympic all-around title. In several interviews following the Olympics, Khorkina referred to the incident as a "black spot in my soul".^[7]

That competition saw another great upset; Viktoria Karpenko entered the final rotation in the lead but a fall during the floor exercise dropped her to 12th. The Romanians initially swept the All-around podium, with Andreea Răducan, Simona Amânar, and Maria Olaru finishing in the top three. Răducan was stripped of her gold after a positive drug test, due to being administered a banned cold medicine, and Amânar was officially named the 2000 Olympic All-Around champion, though she herself has never accepted this and gave her gold medal to Raducan. The cold medication was quietly removed from the list of banned substances a few years later.^[7] As of 2010 it is back on the list.

After these crushing disappointments, both Khorkina and her Russian teammates bounced back in event finals. In a tense and emotionally charged competition, Svetlana narrowly retained her bars title. Once again she beat a Chinese athlete into second place, this time edging Ling Jie by a narrow margin.^[8] She also won a silver on floor behind teammate Elena Zamolodchikova.

2001-2004[link]

Khorkina stayed competitive as she aimed for a spot in a third Olympic Games. She appeared at the 2001 World Championships and won the All-Around title as well as the vault, and continued her winning streak on the uneven bars. With 5 consecutive World titles and 2 Olympic titles, Khorkina was now the most accomplished gymnast ever, male or female, on a single apparatus. From 1995 to 2001, she had won every World and Olympic title on the bars.

Khorkina won the European All-Around title in 2002. She beat Verona van de Leur of the Netherlands despite crashing her vault. Many including commentator and former USA Olympic gymnast Bart Conner felt that Van De Leur should have won, and that Khorkina only won due to favouritism from judges.

In 2003, Khorkina admitted that gymnastics took its toll on her body, that she had begun to "feel her age", but vowed to return to the Olympics for a third time. At the 2003 World Championships in Anaheim, California she became World All-Around champion for a third time, a feat that had never been accomplished by any woman.

2004 Olympic Games[link]

Khorkina went into the 2004 Athens Olympics as one of the favorites and her last Olympic games. Somewhat underpar in prelims, nonetheless she qualified to the all-around and bars finals. In the team competition, her solid performances helped Russia to a surprise bronze, and their delight at this result was in stark contrast to the reaction to the silver at the two previous Games (the 1996 and 2000 Russian teams were considered contenders for the gold, while the 2004 squad was not as strong).

In the all-around competition, she won silver behind the American Carly Patterson. She had been leading after two events, but wobbled on beam and an incomplete triple spin on floor, in addition to the fact that Patterson's floor exercise and beam routines had higher difficulty, allowed Patterson to move ahead and take the title. In a press conference after the medal ceremony Khorkina claimed that Patterson only won because she was American before stating that this was only a joke and that she, Khorkina, was still Olympic champion. It is unclear whether Khorkina meant that she was the rightful champion of the 2004 all-around, or was referring to the fact that she was the reigning bars champion after her victory in Sydney. However, in a later interview with a Russian newspaper, Izvestia, Khorkina claimed that Patterson's win was 'fixed' and that it had been decided in advance, citing the lengthy delay in posting her vault score whilst judges conferred.

Life outside gymnastics[link]

Khorkina received the Order of Honour from Russian President Vladimir Putin on 8 June 2001.

The sport complex of the Belgorod State University, named in honour of Khorkina, in Belgorod, her native city

Khorkina has enjoyed almost as much attention for her activities outside the gym. She posed nude/topless for the Russian version of Playboy in November 1997 and posed for the Russian version of Maxim right before the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. She has aspirations to become an actress, and has taken to the stage as Brenda Venus, Henry Miller's last love, in a Sergei Vinogradov production. She claimed that she did not have the patience to coach. She turned to motherhood: she gave birth to her first child, a son named Svyatoslav, on July 21, 2005 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, thus giving her child American citizenship. The father of the child is still unknown, and because of that it is still create speculationts in the Russian tabloids. Khorkina gave her own surname Khorkin (Хоркин) to her son. Although she likes to be in the spotlight, she keeps her private life out of public view.

On May 2, 2011 Russian tabloid newspaper Express Gazeta reported, that Khorkina has been married to a 55 year old former FSB general, Oleg Konchev. [3] According to Svetlana's father, Vasiliy the couple married between April 15 to 17. "The traditional tournament "Cup Khorkina" took place in Belgorod from 15 to 17 April. At some point, they escaped to the capital and there they're married." According to Khorkina' father, he refused to give Konchev parental blessing to marry his daughter. And he claimed in the interview that the father of Svetlana's son, Svyatoslav is Kirill Shubskij, a Russian businessman and the husband of the well known Russian actress Vera Glagoleva. [4] Back in 2005 Express Gazeta reported that Shubskij and Khorkina had a long affair while the businessman was already married to Glagoleva, and Khorkina's son is the result of this relationship.[5]

Since December 2004 Khorkina has been vice-president of the Russian artistic gymnastics federation.

On March 12, 2007 in her native city of Belgorod, the sport complex of the Belgorod State University is opened. The complex was named after Svetlana. At the front of the complex there is a statue of her as well.

On the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games she was a commentator for the Artistic gymnastics competitions for the Russian TV station NTV+.

Her autobiography was published on April 22, 2008. The title of the book is "Somersaults on High Heels".[6] The book is published by Olma-Press. Her second book, which focuses on fitness and avoiding sport injuries released in May 2009 (Title: Fitness as a hobby and bodies), by the same publisher. In August 2009, she announced, that she working on a 3rd book, in which she plan to share beauty secrets. The working title of this upcoming book is "Image and beauty of champions".

She is an ambassador of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi [7]

Political activities[link]

Khorkina has been a member of the political party of United Russia since 2003. She was elected as a member of the United Russia party to the Russian State Duma in 2007 [8]. She is a deputy chairwoman of the Duma’s Youth Affairs Committee. She lost her seat after the legislative election in 2011.

On July 19, 2009 at the Russian State Council of youth session, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev casually mentioned appointing Khorkina as governor. Khorkina later said of the comment, “Of course it’s a very flattering offer, but I understand that I need to study a lot for this,” she said. “I have just begun this journey and am only beginning my work in politics.”

[9] As of 2009, Khorkina is studying for her second degree, in public service (she has her first degree from the Belgorod State University).

Floor music[link]

1992 - "Turkish March" by Mozart
1994-1996 - "Entracte III" from the Overture of Carmen
1997 - Poeme
1998 - "Wedding/You Never Can Tell" from Pulp Fiction
1999 - "Kiss Me All Over (Besame Mucho)" by Francis Purcell
2000-2001 - "Pistolero" from "Migration" by Dave Grusin
2002 - "When I Close My Eyes" by Igor Krutoy
2003 - "Le Temps des Cathédrales" and "Belle" from "Notre Dame de Paris" by Richard Cocciante and Luc Plamondon
2004 - "Goodbye My Love" by Demis Roussos^[9]

Achievements[link]

Competitive highlights[link]

Major achievements[link]

• Gold medal, uneven bars, 1996 Summer Olympics, Atlanta
• Gold medal, uneven bars, 2000 Summer Olympics, Sydney
• Silver medal, team competition, 1996 Summer Olympics, Atlanta
• Silver medal, team competition, 2000 Summer Olympics, Sydney
• Silver medal, floor, 2000 Summer Olympics, Sydney
• Silver medal, all-around, 2004 Summer Olympics, Athens
• Bronze medal, team competition, 2004 Summer Olympics, Athens

• At the European Championships, she won uneven bars six times (1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004—record) and the all-around three times (1998, 2000, 2002—a record tie with Nadia Comăneci). From 1994 to 2004, she collected 20 medals: 13 gold, 5 silver, and 2 bronze. Both wins and medals are all time records.
• Svetlana is nine time World Champion: five uneven bars (1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2001), three all-around (1997, 2001, 2003—a record for a male or female gymnast), and one vault (2001).

Original skills[link]

Khorkina has an unprecedented 8 skills in the Code of Points, including at least one on each apparatus, and more than any other gymnast, male or female.

Skills named after Svetlana Khorkina:

Vault:

• Khorkina I - Round-off ½ on piked Cuervo
• Khorkina II - Round-off ½ on tucked Rudi (this was a phenomenally difficult skill for her due to her height and as she got older she seldom practiced it because of the wear and tear on her body from falling on that skill. Nevertheless she managed to hit this skill in competition with some success, most notably at the 2003 World Championships and the 2004 Summer Olympics.)

Uneven bars:

• Khorkina I - Front giant to hop release and regrasp the bars in the hect position. Also known as a Markelov in the men's code of points.
• Khorkina II - Shaposhnikova with a ½ twist
• Khorkina/Chow - Stalder-Kim pirouette

Beam:

• Khorkina I - Gainer full twisting back handspring
• Khorkina II - Gainer 2½ twist dismount

Floor exercise:

• Khorkina- Jump 1½ turn in horizontal plane to land in prone

Citation[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Svetlana Khorkina

• Svetlana Khorkina at Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
• List of competitive results at Gymn Forum
• Sveta's Page an unofficial Svetlana Khorkina website
• Khorkina-multimedia an unofficial Svetlana Khorkina website

Gymnastics portal

Beth Tweddle
Beth Tweddle during her win in the floor final of the 2009 World Championships
Personal information
Full name	Elizabeth Kimberly Tweddle
Country represented	United Kingdom  England
Born	(1985-04-01) 1 April 1985 (age 27) Johannesburg, South Africa
Hometown	Bunbury, Cheshire
Height	161 centimetres (5 ft 3 in)[1]
Weight	53 kilograms (120 lb)[1]
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Level	International
Club	City of Liverpool (first club- Hartford School Of Gymnastics)
Gym	City of Liverpool Gymnastics
Head coach(es)	Amanda Reddin
Assistant coach(es)	Zoltan Jordanov
Choreographer	Corina Morosan
Medal record World Championships Gold 2006 Aarhus Uneven Bars Gold 2009 London Floor Gold 2010 Rotterdam Uneven Bars Bronze 2003 Anaheim Uneven Bars Bronze 2005 Melbourne Uneven Bars World Cup Final Gold 2006 Sao Paolo Uneven Bars Silver 2004 Birmingham Uneven Bars Silver 2006 Sao Paolo Floor European Championships Gold 2006 Volos Uneven Bars Gold 2009 Milan Uneven Bars Gold 2009 Milan Floor Gold 2010 Birmingham Uneven Bars Gold 2010 Birmingham Floor Gold 2011 Berlin Uneven Bars Silver 2004 Amsterdam Uneven Bars Silver 2007 Amsterdam Floor Silver 2008 Clermont-Ferrand Floor Silver 2010 Birmingham Team Bronze 2002 Patras Uneven Bars Commonwealth Games Gold 2002 Manchester Uneven Bars Silver 2002 Manchester Team Silver 2002 Manchester All-Around

Elizabeth "Beth" Kimberly Tweddle MBE (born 1 April 1985) is an English gymnast. Tweddle is a three time world champion having won the 2010 World Championships and 2006 World Championships on the uneven bars and the 2009 World Championships on the floor. Tweddle was the first gymnast from Britain ever to win a medal at the World and European Championships, and is considered to be the most successful British gymnast of all time.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} She is also a seven-time British National Champion, having won the title every year between 2001 and 2007.^[7]

Background[link]

Beth Tweddle was born in Johannesburg, South Africa where her father was temporarily employed, and moved to England with her family when she was 18 months old.^[8] She was raised in Bunbury, Cheshire, England. Tweddle began competing in gymnastics at the age of seven^[4] at a local club (Crewe and Nantwich Gymnastics Club ^[9]), and was named to the British junior national team in 1994. In 1997, she moved to the City of Liverpool Gymnastics Club. Tweddle trains alongside other British gymnasts, such as Hannah Whelan.^[10] Tweddle won the British senior National Championships for the first time in 2001.^[6] Tweddle was a member of the City of Liverpool Gymnastics Club team, which has won the British Team Championships five times.^[11] Tweddle attended the Queens School in Chester.

Gymnastics career[link]

2001–2004[link]

Beth Tweddle first major senior international competition was the 2001 World Championships, placing 24th in the all-around and ninth in the team event.^[12]

In 2002 Tweddle won a bronze medal on the uneven bars at the 2002 European Artistic Gymnastic Championships (European Championships) in Patras, Greece, the first medal won by a British gymnast at a European Championship.^[3][13] At the 2002 World Championships, Tweddle finished fourth on the uneven bars whilst at the 2002 Commonwealth Games, she won the all-around event and the uneven bars and finished second in the team event.^[14]

In 2003 Tweddle won a bronze on the uneven bars at the World Championships, becoming the first British gymnast ever to medal at a World Championships.^[3][15]

In 2004, Tweddle won a silver medal on the uneven bars and placing fifth with the British team at the European Championships. At the Athens Olympics,^[12][16] Tweddle finished eleventh in the team competition and nineteenth in the all-around.^[12] At the 2004 World Cup finals in Birmingham, Tweddle won a silver medal on the uneven bars and placed fifth on floor.^[12]

2005-2008[link]

During the 2005 season, Tweddle withdrew from the European Championships through injury, after qualifying in the top eight for all events.^{[citation needed]} At the 2005 World Championships, Tweddle finished fourth in the floor and third in uneven bars.^[17] Due to injury sustained during the uneven bars, Tweddle withdrew from floor competition^{[citation needed]}.

Tweddle missed the 2006 Commonwealth Games due to injury,^[17] but later in the year won the gold medal on the uneven bars at the European Championships. Her victory was the first at a European Championships for a British gymnast.^[3]

In October 2006, Tweddle became Britain's first ever gymnastics World Champion by winning the uneven bars event with a score of 16.200 in the 2006 World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark,^[18] ahead of 2005 World Champion Nastia Liukin despite having only qualified in fifth place and having fallen from the bars in the all-around. Tweddle also finished fifth in the floor finals. At the final major competition of 2006, the World Cup final, Tweddle won the uneven bars.^[12]

Tweddle won her seventh consecutive British National Championship title in July 2007.^[7] Later in the year, she competed with the British team at the 2007 World Championships, helping them to qualify a full team to the 2008 Olympics, but placed out of the medals in all events.^[12][19]

At the 2008 European Championships in April, Tweddle won a silver medal on the floor and placed fourth on the uneven bars.^[20]

At the 2008 Olympics ^[16][21] Tweddle finished 4th on the uneven bars with a score of 16.625.^[22]

2009–2012[link]

At the 2009 European Championships, Tweddle won gold medals on both floor exercise and bars.^[23] Tweddle also won both events at the Glasgow Grand Prix.^[24]

At the 2009 World Championships held in London Tweddle failed to qualify to the uneven Bars final, but won the Floor competition.^[25]

Tweddle again took two gold medals at the 2010 European Championship in Birmingham, retaining both floor and bars titles. The British team, of which she was part, also won silver in the team competition.

At the 2010 World Championships in Rotterdam, in a reverse of her performance at the World Championships in 2009, Tweddle failed to qualify for the floor final, but won the gold medal in the uneven Bars final. Tweddle was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2010 New Year Honours.^[26]

The next year, she failed to qualify for any event finals by a relatively weak showing on the uneven bars, but went on to earn a 15.666 in Team Finals, which would have edged World champion Viktoria Komova for the Uneven bars title by 0.166. However, Beth Tweddle helped her team to earn a fifth place finish, the best team results of the British Gymnastics Team ever.

At the English Championships held in March 2012, Tweddle competed a slightly altered and rearranged routine with a double-double (two somersaults with two full twists) dismount which is attempted by only few female gymnasts. She went on to compete at the FIG World Cup event in Doha, where she won Gold on the uneven bars ^[27]

Other activities[link]

Tweddle graduated from Liverpool John Moores University with a degree in Sports Science in 2007.^[6] After retiring, she plans to become a physiotherapist.^[2]

As a result of her success in international gymnastics, Tweddle was nominated for, and finished in third place, for the 2006 BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the only British gymnast ever to make the short list for the award.^[28]

Competitive history[link]

Results as per Tweddle's official competition record at the International Gymnastics Federation athlete profile page.^[12]

2001[link]

2002[link]

2003[link]

2004[link]

2005[link]

2006[link]

2007[link]

2008[link]

2009[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Elizabeth Tweddle

• Official website
• Beth Tweddle at Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
• Students interview Beth Tweddle

Gymnastics portal