48-year-old gymnast Oksana Chusovitina sets eyes on ninth Olympics participation in Paris 2024

Oksana Chusovitina is all set to make history at the Paris Olympics 2024. The legendary gymnast has decided to compete at the prestigious event for the ninth time in the upcoming year. Moreover, by doing so, she will become the only gymnast ever to compete in nine Olympic games.

Uzbekistan gymnast Chusovítina began competing internationally in 1989, when many of her rival gymnasts were not even born. Throughout her Olympic career so far, the Bukhara-born gymnast has represented three different countries - the Unified Team in 1992; Uzbekistan in 1996, 2000, 2004, 2016 and 2020; and Germany in 2008 and 2012.

Oksana Chusovitina won her first Olympic gold medal in the team event at her debut in 1992 in Barcelona. At an age when most gymnasts retire and enjoy the rest of their lives, the legendary gymnast sees no stopping even in 2023. Recently, she announced her participation in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The news was disclosed by the official X (formerly known as Twitter) page of The Olympic Games. It shared a video of the 48-year-old’s Olympic journey so far and wrote:

"Since 1992! 8 Olympics straight - and she's going for her 9th at #Paris2024! Oksana Chusovítina has been rocking the world's biggest stage for 31 years."

Ideally, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics would have been Oksana Chusovitina’s last event. However, she failed to qualify for the final in Vault. Following that, she decided to compete in the 2022 Asian Games. However, it got postponed due to the pandemic.

To quench her thirst for competitiveness, she competed at the Doha World Cup Event and the Uzbekistan National Championships in 2022. Impressively, she won the gold medal in vault in both the championships. Afterwards, the gymnast changed her mind and decided to train for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

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Oksana Chusovitina’s gymnastics journey

Oksana Chusovitina (Image via Business Insider)

Oksana Chusovítina began her gymnastics journey in 1982, when she was just seven years old. By 1988, she won the all-around title at the USSR National Championships in the junior division.

Chusovitina's performances made her a very crucial part of the then-Soviet team. She won several international championships, like the 1990 Goodwill Games and the 1990 World Sports Fair. Moreover, she won gold and silver in the floor exercise and vault events at the 1991 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

Moreover, the legendary gymnast had won a team gold medal and placed seventh in the floor final in her first-ever Olympics in 1992.

In her overall career, Oksana Chusovitina boasts of 11 World Championships wins, 8 wins in the Asian Games, 2 Olympics wins, and the list goes on.