Zinaida Voronina

Zinaida Voronina
Born	(1947-12-10)December 10, 1947 Yoshkar-Ola
Died	March 17, 2001(2001-03-17) (aged 53)
Gymnastics career
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Country represented	Soviet Union
Medal record Olympic Games 1968 Mexico City Team 1968 Mexico City Individual All-Around 1968 Mexico City Vault 1968 Mexico City Uneven bars World Championships 1966 Dortmund Team 1966 Dortmund Floor Exercise 1970 Ljubljana Team 1970 Ljubljana Individual all-around 1970 Ljubljana Uneven Bars 1970 Ljubljana Floor Exercise European Championships 1967 Amsterdam Individual All-Around 1967 Amsterdam Balance Beam 1967 Amsterdam Floor Exercise

Zinaida Voronina, born Zinaida Borisovna Druzhinina (also Druginina) (Template:Lang-ru) (10 December 1947 – 17 March 2001) was a Soviet gymnast who competed at the European, World, and Olympic level from the mid 1960s to early 1970s. She was born in Yoshkar-Ola, Russia.

Voronina's major debut came at the 1966 World Championships in Dortmund, Germany, where, as a member of the 1966 Soviet team, she also won a bronze medal on the floor exercise with an enthusiastically received 9.933, which was the highest individual score of any gymnast - male or female - at those games. (Due to scores carried over from the team competition, Natalia Kuchinskaya and Věra Čáslavská placed higher than Voronina in the medal standings.)

She went on to further successes at the European and Olympic level, winning several individual medals over the next 4 years, most notably at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics where she won the individual all-around silver behind Caslavska.

Around the time of the 1968 games, she married fellow soviet gymnast, European and World All-Around Champion and Olympic Vault and High Bar Champion Mikhail Voronin. She had a child with him shortly thereafter and came back to further successes at the 1970 World Championships, among other games. She attempted to make the Soviet team for the 1972 Olympics, but in a deep field including Ludmilla Tourischeva, Olga Korbut, and Tamara Lazakovich, she only placed 10th in the individual all-around at that year's USSR Championships and did not make it onto the team for that summer's games in Munich.

Saddled with a very difficult childhood (alcoholic mother, father she never met), Voronina's post-competitive life was punctuated by, as a gymnastics coach, struggling with alcoholism. She was divorced from her husband, Mikhail, in 1980, and spent the remainder of her years working in a factory in Balashikha, Russia, dying in March 2001 at the age of 53 years old.

In 1969, she was awarded the Soviet award for gymnasts, "Order of the Badge of Honor".

References

• http://www.gymn-forum.net/results.html
• http://www.gymn-forum.net/Miscellaneous/USSR_Awards.html
• http://www.gymn-forum.net/bios/women/voronina.html
• http://www.gymnast.ru/persons/v.html