MYSTERIOUS MARIA

▪️The picture was taken by Volkov E.▪️

There is little information about private life of this sportswoman. But her great wins are known around the world.

Maria Gorohovskaya was the only woman who became twofold Olympic champion: she won 7 medals at Olympiad in Helsinki in 1952 when she was 30 years old. She became the woman`s all-around champion: this rank was established for the first time ever. But there was a debatable question who was the first Olympic champion: Maria or Nina Ponomareva. After lengthy debate it was decided that the first champion was Nina Ponomareva. Maria thought that the decision was unfair. The reason of it was her nationality: Maria Gorohovskaya was Jewish, Nina Ponomareva was Russian.

Maria left her hometown in 1941 and entered the Leningrad Physical Education University, but the war came and Maria started working in the hospital. She was keeping watch on the roofs at night during the war. Then there was a hunger, complete exhaustion and she was evacuated to Kazakhstan. Maria was survived by a miracle…

After the war she came back to the university. She was training during her study and in 1948 she became the USSR champion. Then she won 10 times at different national championships and two times she was the winner in individual all-around competition. In 1954 she became the world champion, but she decided to leave sport. Nobody knows about her private life.
Her recent competitor, Agnesh Keleti, became her friend and she endorsed the decision of emigration to Israel. There they worked as the trainers in the centre of gymnastics when they were in their 70s.