NELLI KIM

 

 

NAME: Nelli Kim

BIRTHDATE: July 29, 1957

BIRTHPLACE: Chimkent, Kazakhstan

MEDAL COUNT: 16 World and Olympic medals (10 gold).

• Born to a Korean father and Tartar mother Kim began gymnastics at the age of 7 after being spotted in a gym class by coach Vladimir Baidin.
• In 1971 Kim took part in her first national competition, the National Youth Championships, where she placed 5th.
• Two years later she won her first international title, taking the Moscow News crown.
• Later that same year (1973), Kim had her first head-to-head competition with longtime Romanian rival Nadia Comaneci at an Eastern Block Druzhba ("friendship") meet. As would often be the case Kim was 2nd, just behind Comaneci.
• At her first World Championships in 1974 Kim earned gold with her team, along with beam bronze.
• At the '75 Europeans the Kim-Comaneci rivalry began in earnest, with Kim claiming four medals including gold on floor and the first of many all-around silvers. (Kim was also 2nd on beam and 3rd on bars.)
• By 1976 Kim had climbed to the top of Soviet gymnastics.
• At the '76 Olympics in Montreal, Kim followed Comaneci into history, scoring the Olympics' second perfect 10.0. Kim also stood alongside Comaneci on the award stand, placing second overall after helping the Soviet Union to yet another team gold. Kim added two more indivdual golds to her tally, taking top honors on floor and vault, the events which best displayed her awesome power.
• The 1977 European Championships saw Kim collect another four medals: gold on vault, silver on beam (Kim had earned bronze, but was bumped up to silver when Romanian coach Bela Karolyi walked out of the meet with Comaneci, who had originally earned second) and bronze in the all-around and on floor.
• At the 1978 World Championships Kim continued to excel, though the top spot still eluded her. (Her performance may have been effected by an emergency appendectomy earlier in the year.) Kim settled for second all-around once again, this time behind teammate Yelena Mukhina, but still left with an impressive three gold tally (team, vault and floor).
• 1979 would finally be Kim's year. After a sweep of the USSR Championship event titles, Kim, now 22, claimed her long-awaited world all-around crown at the '79 Worlds. She also earned vault gold and three silvers (team, beam and floor). Ironically, as Kim finally conquered Comaneci (who did not take part in the all-around), the unbeatable Soviet team fell, for the first and only time, to Bela Karolyi's Romanians.
• In 1980, 23-year-old Kim, now the reigning world champ, was still going strong, leading the Soviet squad to the Moscow Olympics. In those, her final Games, Kim fell to 5th in the all-around, but pushed her team back into the top spot and retained her floor gold from '76.
• After retiring shortly after the Games, Kim settled in Minsk where she had previously resided with ex-husband, and fellow Olympian, Vladimir Achasov.
• In 1983 Kim, by then re-married, was nominated by the Soviet Minister of Sport, Marat Gramov, as the national team coach for the republic of Belorussia (now Belarus).
• A year later she passed the FIG judges course and began judging internationally.
• In 1985 Kim and husband Valerie had their first child, a daughter.
• As a judge at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea, Kim formed a friendship with several Korean coaches and officials. As a result, Kimwas invited by the Korean Gymnastics Federation to help coach their team in preparation for the 1990 Asian Games.
• In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kim remained in Belarus, coaching and judging. She also began to take over several gymnastics federation duties, including organizing gymnastics shows around the world to raise money for Belarus. She even performed in many of the shows herself.
• Kim, who had gradually taken on more and more administrative duties, moved to the U.S. (Minneapolis, Minn.) in 1995, where she continued to run the Belarusian Gymnastics Federation, including organizing the team's pre-Olympic training camp in Ga.
• In 1996 Kim was elected to the FIG women's technical committee, where she continues to serve today.

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