Marina Lobatch

She currently lives in Minsk with her husband, Dmitry Bogdanov, and their daughters, Irina and Nadya.

Lobatch started the sport in 1977 at age 7. Lobatch would be among leading Soviet gymnasts of the 1980s (along with Tatiana Druchinina, Galina Beloglazova, and Dalia Kutkaitė); she had won the gold in the hoop competition and won bronze in the rope and clubs competitions during the 1987 World Championships. Yet at the all-around event she found herself again behind two Bulgarian gymnasts placing her in 4th (tied with teammate Anna Kotchneva). In 1988 Lobatch finished 4th at the European Championships.

Her biggest success was during the 1988 Seoul Olympics. She had received perfect tens on all of her routines during the qualifying and final rounds of the all-around competition. Her competitors had also received perfect scores during the finals, but had not received perfect scores in the qualifying round (the qualifying scores were divided by two and added onto the final round scores). Their final scores were very close, with Lobatch receiving 60.000, Adriana Dunavska receiving 59.950, and Olexandra Tymoshenko receiving 59.875.

Lobatch is the youngest Olympic Champion in rhythmic gymnastics at 18 years, 3 months and 6 days; despite never being crowned European or World All-around Champion. She retired in 1989 at the age of 19.

In 1993, Lobatch went to Lamezia Terme, Italy to prepare her gymnasts, Larissa Lukyanenko and Tatiana Ogrizko for the Italia Serie A. It was in Lamezia Terme that they trained for a little while, and they competed for the local club Gascal in the Serie A. Lobatch returned to Belarus in April 1994. In 1998 she was invited to Italy by the Gascal club, where she spent several weeks with her family.

Lobatch is a coach and judge for the Belarusian Gymnastics Federation. She has been awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples. She is coaching Alina Harnasko (2020 European All-around silver medalist).

• Marina LOBATCH at the International Gymnastics Federation