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Maria Gorokhovskaya
Making history by winning seven medals at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Maria Gorokhovskaya was the top performer among all athletes, men and women, at that Olympics.
In 1990, she emigrated to Israel. It was not known until then that Maria was Jewish. She had kept her identity a secret in the Soviet Union so it would not hurt her gymnastics career.
Making history by winning 7 medals at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Maria Gorokhovskaya was the top performer among all athletes, men and women, at those Olympics. Born on October 17, 1921, in Yevpatoria, Ukraine, Maria served as a nurse at a Leningrad hospital during WWII, throughout the siege of the city, before she turned her focus to gymnastics.
Gorokhovskaya won her first Soviet title on balance beam in 1948 and became an obvious choice for the 1952 Helsinki games, which was the first Olympics for the Soviet Union as a country. Maria finished second on all four individual events and earned the gold medal in the all-around. Her team won the gold as well. The Soviets also won the silver in the portable apparatus competition, which was a precursor to the sport of rhythmic gymnastics.
Gorokhovskaya competed one last time at 37 years of age at the 1954 Worlds, where her team won gold and she earned the bronze medal on floor exercise. After the 1954 Worlds, Maria retired and began working as a coach and judge.
In 1990, she emigrated to Israel. It was not known until then that Maria was Jewish. She had kept her identity a secret in the Soviet Union so it would not hurt her gymnastics career. In 1991, Gorokhovskaya was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. While in Israel, she coached gymnastics until she died on July 22, 2001, in Tel Aviv.