Natalia Kuchinskaya (USSR)

1966 World AA Silver Medalist
1968 Olympic AA Bronze Medalist

Natalia Kuchinskaya and Larisa Petrik.

Medal Total

Olympic Games:   2 Gold, 2 Bronze
World Championships:  3 Gold, 2 Silver, 1 Bronze
European Championships:   2 Silver

Natalia was born in Leningrad on March 8, 1949 and came from a sporting family.  Her father, Alexander, headed the Sport Games department of the Leningrad Institute of Railway Engineers. Her mother, Ekaterina, founded a rhythmic gymnastics school so Natalia and her younger sister Marina naturally gravitated to the sport. Marina stayed in rhythmic gymnastics and eventually became a world champion in the group exercise.

Natalia enjoyed playing many sports as a kid but found her calling after being selected by coaches at a tryout of the Trud society's sports gymnastics school. Her first coach was Klavdia Zherdeva. After a few years, Kuchinskaya caught the eye of Vladimir Reison and transferred to his group in 1962. Two years later she achieved the Candidate for Master of Sport title (she achieved the Master of Sport title in 1965). She and Reison added several "Ultra-C" elements to her routines which allowed her to win the USSR championships in 1965 and claim three gold medals (bars, beam, floor) at the 1966 World Championships. When Reison, who was Jewish, applied to emigrate in the mid-1960s, Natalia was sent to Kiev to train with national team coach Vladimir Smirnov (who had coached Polina Astakhova).

A disastrous uneven bars performance (7.766 points) at the 1967 European Championships resulted in a ninth-place all-around finish, although Natalia won the Pre-Olympic test event in Mexico City later that year (Caslavska did not compete). Kuchinskaya was a favorite to win the overall gold at the 1968 Olympics, but once again she had trouble on the uneven bars (8.45). After the compulsory program, she was in 11th place; few believed she could win an all-around medal but she scored an astounding (for then) 39.00 points in the optional round to claim the bronze medal. She also became the Olympic beam champion and took bronze on the floor exercise. The USSR women also won the team gold by a narrow 0.65 points.

Natalia developed a thyroid condition after the Olympics and was unable to train for quite a while. She recovered and moved to Moscow to work with Sofia Muratova. Kuchinskaya's last competition was in 1970 at a domestic competition sponsored by Spordileht, an Estonian sports newspaper. She won.

After retiring, Natalia got married, worked as a coach of beginning gymnasts in Kiev, and judged at domestic competitions.  In 1990, she accepted a one-year coaching job in Japan.  She returned to Leningrad (by then called St. Petersburg) and then took a coaching job in the USA in the late 1990s. She lives in the Chicago area and is still working as a gymnastics coach.

Competition Results

1963
Trade Union Sports Schools Championships:  3rd Team, 1st AA (Second Category)

1965
Jr. Friendship Tournament (Druzhba):  1st AA, 1st V, 1st V, 1st FX
USSR Championships:  3rd Team, 1st AA, 1st B
USSR-JPN Dual Meet:  1st Team, 2nd AA