Nickname
The Crystal Statuette, The Angel with Iron Wings (cnn.com, 20 Nov 2013; fig-gymnastics.com, 13 Apr 2015)
Occupation
Athlete, Student
Family
Partner Mikhail Kulagin
Spoken languages
Russian
Club
Youth of Moscow [Russia]
Coach
Ekaterina Pankova, RUS; Tatiana Kurbakova, RUS; Elena Karpushenko, RUS; Irina Viner-Usmanova, RUS (vfrg.ru, 2016)
Sporting relatives
Her father Aleksey Kudryavtsev represented the Unified Team in swimming at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, winning gold in the 4x200m freestyle relay. Her partner Mikhail Kulagin is a basketball player and has represented Russia at junior level. (cnn.com, 20 Nov 2013; sobesednik.ru, 02 Oct 2015)
Injuries
She competed at the 2015 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, despite a left ankle injury. She pulled out of the hoops competition but competed and won the all-around, ball, clubs and ribbon competitions. In late September 2015 she underwent surgery and had to wear an orthopaedic boot for six weeks. (fig-gymnastics.com, 12 Sep 2015; rsport.ru, 18 Oct 2015)
Start sporting career
She took up gymnastics at age four. (cnn.com, 20 Nov 2013)
Reason for taking up the sport
"A family friend came over once, and his wife, who is a rhythmic gymnastics coach, told my father that he should sign me up for gymnastics. She said it would be good for my posture and flexibility. And it turned out that gymnastics gave me much more than that. I wasn't very good when I got started. I watched a video of myself when I was little and I can't even tell what I was doing, it was so bad." (fig-gymnastics.com, 20 Sep 2014)
Most influential person in career
Her father. (olympic.ru, 18 Feb 2015)
Additional information
Awards
She holds the title of Honoured Master of Sport in Russia. (vfrg.ru, 2016)
She was awarded the Prize for Elegance at the 2014 World Championships in Izmir, Turkey. (fig-gymnastics.com, 11 Sep 2015)
General
YOUNGEST
In 2013 she became the youngest rhythmic gymnastics individual all-around world champion when she won the title at 15 years of age. (fig-gymnastics.com, 01 Apr 2015)
Last update : 2016-09-23