Up for auction "Olympic Silver Medalist" Nelli Kim Hand Signed 3X5 Card. This piece come authenticated Signature Auctions and comes with their Letter of Authenticity. ES-3417 Nellie
Vladimirovna Kim (Russian: Нелли
Владимировна Ким; born 29
July 1957) is a retired Soviet gymnast of
Sakhlin Korean and Tatar descent who won three gold medals and a silver medal
at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal,
and two gold medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics. She
was the second woman in Olympic history to earn a perfect 10 score and the first woman
to score it on the vault and on the floor
exercise, rivaling Nadia
Comăneci, Ludmilla Tourischeva, and other strong
competitors of the 1970s. Kim worked for a long time as a coach, training
several national teams, and judged many major international competitions. As
President of the Women's Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee, she
coordinates the introduction of new rules in women's gymnastics, as provided by
the new Code of Points,
developed by the FIG in 2004–2005 and
in effect since 2006. Her gymnastic appearances are remembered for "her
strong feminine, temperamental and charismatic appeal". Nellie Kim was
born in Shurab, Tajik SSR, Soviet Union.
She is the daughter of a Sakhalin
Korean father, Vladimir Kim, and a Tatar mother, Alfiya
Safina. Later
the family moved to Kazakh SSR, where her father worked in
the Chimkent slate
factory. At age 9, she entered Chimkent City Children and Youth Sports School 3[3][4] of
the Spartak Sports Society. Two other children
in the family, her younger brother Alexander and her sister Irina, also entered
a gymnastics school and trained for some time. Alexander was harassed by his
classmates in the secondary school for his small stature and retired from
gymnastics in favor of boxing. Irina, whom Nellie considered more talented than
she, retired because of the demands of the frequent training sessions. Kim's
trainers were Vladimir Baidin and
his wife, Galina Barkova. Initially, she did not have the required flexibility
of many of her fellow gymnasts, but was soon able to compensate with superior
technique and the difficulty of her exercises. Kim excelled and quickly became
one of the best in Soviet gymnastics. One of Kim's earliest successes was her
victory in the republican Spartak's competition, held in Chimkent in
1969. Nevertheless, a year later she was said to "have no future" by
celebrated gymnast Larisa Latynina.[5] After
that verdict, Kim was close to leaving gymnastics but persevered with support
from Baidin. At the 1971 Junior USSR Championships, her first national
competition, she placed fifth in the all-around. Success in the national junior
circuit, as well as senior national and international debuts, followed two
years later. Kim won the all-around title and two more gold medals at the
All-Union Youth Sports Games, placed eighth in the all-around and first on
the uneven bars at
the USSR Cup; she also won the prestigious Chunichi Cup in Japan. After a
second-place finish at the USSR Cup in August 1974, Kim was added to the team roster
for the World Championships,
held in October, where she earned the gold medal in the team competition.
Afterwards, and until 1980, she successfully competed in numerous top-level
international events. Kim's nickname among USSR teammates and team coaches was
"Kimanellie," which she earned, when a trainer Vladislav Rastorotsky called her very
quickly: "Kim, Nellie, to the phone!" |