Natalia Kalinina was a member of the last Soviet world championship team to win a gold medal in 1991.
27 Facts About Natalia Kalinina
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Natalia Kalinina was the 1990 European champion on the uneven bars.
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Natalia Kalinina was not selected to compete for the Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics.
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Natalia Kalinina believes that politics would only allow three gymnasts to come from one republic, and there were already three gymnasts from Ukraine selected.
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Natalia Grigoriyevna Kalinina was born in Kherson, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union on 16 December 1973.
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Natalia Kalinina then competed at the Tokyo Cup, where she won gold on the uneven bars.
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Natalia Kalinina finished seventh in the all-around at the USSR National Championships, and she finished third in the all-around and second on bars at the USSR Cup.
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Natalia Kalinina finished in first on the vault, beam, and floor exercise.
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Natalia Kalinina then went on to compete at the 1990 European Championships, where she won silver in the all-around behind teammate Svetlana Boginskaya.
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The Soviet Team won team gold, and Natalia Kalinina won the all-around gold medal with a total of 39.836 and a perfect 10 on floor.
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At the USSR Championships, Natalia Kalinina finished second in the all-around behind Elena Sazonenkova.
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Natalia Kalinina finished fifth in the all-around at the USSR Cup, but she won bronze medals on bars, beam, and floor.
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Natalia Kalinina finished the season by winning gold on the uneven bars at the Moscow News event.
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Natalia Kalinina finished second in the all-around behind teammate Tatiana Gutsu, and she won gold in the balance beam final with a 9.925.
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Natalia Kalinina was then selected for what would be the last Soviet World Championship team.
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Natalia Kalinina was fourteenth in the all-around in the prelims, but she did not qualify for the final due to three of her teammates placing ahead of her.
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At the CIS Championships, Natalia Kalinina placed fifth in the all-around.
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Natalia Kalinina has stated that she believes that politics would not allow more than three gymnasts from one republic.
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Natalia Kalinina then competed at the World Stars event, where she finished third in the all-around behind Gutsu and Lysenko.
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Natalia Kalinina began attending college in Kyiv, but she continued to compete.
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Natalia Kalinina finished fourth in the all-around at the 1993 Chunichi Cup.
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Natalia Kalinina then competed at the 1993 Summer Universiade, and the Ukrainian team won gold, and Natalia Kalinina finished sixth in the all-around.
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Natalia Kalinina competed at the 1994 European Championships, and she finished eighth in the all-around.
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Natalia Kalinina finished fourth in the all-around, and won bronze on floor.
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Natalia Kalinina married fellow performer Mikhail Tsitsilin, and they relocated to his hometown, Voronezh, where they began coaching gymnastics.
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Natalia Kalinina coached gymnastics at the Peninsula Gymnastics club in San Mateo, California until 2009, and then worked at Gold Star Gymnastics in Mountain View, California until 2017.
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Natalia Kalinina now goes by Natasha, the informal name of Natalia in Russian.