Aliya Mustafina

Early life

Mustafina was born in Yegoryevsk, Russia, on 30 September 1994. Her father, Farhat Mustafin, a Volga Tatar, was a bronze medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1976 Summer Olympics, and her mother, Yelena Mustafina (née Kuznetsova), an ethnic Russian, is a physics teacher. Her younger sister, Nailya, is a former member of Russia's junior national gymnastics team.

2007

Mustafina's first major international competition was the International Gymnix in Montreal in March 2007. She placed second in the all-around with a score of 58.825. The following month, she competed at the Stella Zakharova Cup in Kyiv and placed second in the all-around with a score of 55.150.

In September 2007, Mustafina competed at the Japan Junior International in Yokohama. She placed second in the all-around with a score of 59.800 and second in all four event finals, scoring 14.750 on vault, 15.250 on uneven bars, 15.450 on balance beam, and 14.100 on floor exercise.

2008

At the 2008 European Women's Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Mustafina helped the Russian junior team finish in first place and won the silver medal in the individual all-around with a score of 60.300. In event finals, she placed fourth on uneven bars, scoring 14.475, and fourth on floor, scoring 14.375.

In November, she competed in the senior division at the Massilia Cup in Marseille. She placed sixth in the all-around with a score of 57.300; fourth on vault, scoring 13.950; and second on floor, scoring 14.925.

2009

Mustafina competed in the senior division at the Russian national championships in Bryansk in March, and won the all-around with a score of 58.550. She also placed second on uneven bars, scoring 15.300; first on balance beam, scoring 14.950; and third on floor, scoring 14.700. The new Russian head coach, Alexander Alexandrov, lamented the fact that "girls of that age cannot compete at senior international competitions".

She competed twice over the summer, placing second in the all-around (58.250) at the Japan Cup in Tokyo in July and winning the all-around (59.434) in the senior division at the Russian Cup in Penza in August. In December, she won the all-around at the Gymnasiade competition in Doha, Qatar, with a score of 57.350, and went on to place second on vault (13.900), first on uneven bars (14.825), first on balance beam (14.175), and first on floor (14.575).

2010

Mustafina was injured during a training session in March and was unable to compete in the Russian national championships.

In April, she competed at an Artistic Gymnastics World Cup event in Paris. She placed fourth on uneven bars after an error, scoring 14.500, and second on balance beam, scoring 14.175. At the end of the month, she competed at the 2010 European Championships in Birmingham, where she contributed an all-around score of 58.175 toward the Russian team's first-place finish and placed second on uneven bars, scoring 15.050; second on balance beam, scoring 14.375; and eighth on floor, scoring 13.225.

At the Russian Cup in Chelyabinsk in August, Mustafina won the all-around competition with a score of 62.271. In event finals, she placed second on vault, scoring 13.963; first on uneven bars, scoring 14.775; third on balance beam, scoring 14.850; and first on floor, scoring 15.300.

In October, she competed at the 2010 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam and made history by qualifying for the all-around final and all four event finals—the first gymnast to do so since Shannon Miller and Svetlana Khorkina in 1996. She contributed an all-around score of 60.932 toward the Russian team's first-place finish and won the individual all-around with a score of 61.032. In event finals, she placed second on vault, scoring 15.066; second on uneven bars, scoring 15.600; seventh on balance beam, scoring 13.766 after a fall; and second on floor, scoring 14.766. She left Rotterdam with five medals, more than any other artistic gymnast, male or female. Andy Thornton wrote for Universal Sports:

The story behind Aliya Mustafina's all-around gold today is that of a revived dynasty; the dominant Soviet women's team of the 1980s and early 1990s—whom many consider to represent the absolute epitome of artistic gymnastics—was dead and now reborn. In addition to leading her teammates to their country's first world title as an independent nation, Mustafina has delivered one of the great performances by a female gymnast ever—capturing the very same artistry, difficulty, and competitive composure that made her Soviet predecessors so beloved and revered. Mustafina's four-event arsenal is so well balanced it's hard to pick a favorite event to watch her on, and a win so convincing and undeniable as hers gives a satisfying sense of closure to a competition. She has established herself and her Russian teammates as the absolute gymnasts to watch over the next two years—and the gymnasts to beat.

In November, Mustafina competed in the Italian Grand Prix in Cagliari, Sardinia. She placed fourth on uneven bars, scoring 13.570, and first on balance beam, scoring 14.700.

2011

Mustafina competed at the American Cup in Jacksonville, Florida, in March. She finished second, with an all-around score of 59.831, after leading for three-quarters of the competition but falling on floor exercise, the last event. Later that month, she placed second on vault at a World Cup event in Paris, scoring 14.433; first on uneven bars, scoring 15.833; and first on balance beam, scoring 15.333.

In April, she competed at the 2011 European Championships in Berlin. She qualified to the all-around final in first place, with a score of 59.750, but tore her left anterior cruciate ligament while competing on vault in the final. Five days later, she had surgery at Sporthopaedicum in Straubing, Germany, performed by Dr. Michael J. Strobel.

Mustafina's coaches had her resume workouts slowly. Coach Valentina Rodionenko said in May, "Only when we are told that she can proceed with training will we go forward. It's important to save her for the Olympic Games." By July, she was only doing upper body conditioning and rehabilitation on her leg. In August, after the Russian team was announced for the 2011 World Championships, Rodionenko said: "Aliya really wanted to go to Worlds—her heart and soul are literally crying, 'I can do it! I'm ready!' But we do not want to risk costing her the Olympics, and her surgeon in Germany said that she can start real training only in December. She just thinks she's ready now. But she does not really understand what she will face. She must be protected. Sometimes it takes years for people to recover from these injuries, and she hasn't even had five months."

In December, Mustafina returned to competition at the Voronin Cup in Moscow. She placed fourth in the all-around and second on uneven bars with a score of 15.475. Coach Alexander Alexandrov said, "I was pleasantly surprised and happy about her first meet. She didn't do her full routines and full difficulty, but she tried what she was ready for at the time, and for me, it was enough to see. She was nervous, even though her goal was just to compete, to see how she does after eight months off and how well she could handle the pressure and how her knee would feel. I came up to her and said, 'Well, it seems like you're not very nervous at all, and I'm surprised!' And she said, 'Look at my hands, Alexander', and her hands were shaking. 'Maybe I'm not showing that I'm nervous, but inside I have butterflies!'"

2012

Mustafina competed at the Russian national championships in Penza in March at what Alexandrov said was "75 to 80 percent". She won the all-around with a score of 59.533 and uneven bars with a score of 16.220, and finished fifth on balance beam with a score of 13.680. In May, at the 2012 European Championships in Brussels, she contributed scores of 15.166 on vault, 15.833 on uneven bars, and 13.933 on floor toward the Russian team's second-place finish.

At the Russian Cup in Penza in June, she placed second in the all-around, behind Viktoria Komova, with a score of 59.167. In event finals, she placed first on uneven bars, scoring 16.150; second on balance beam, scoring 15.000; and first on floor, scoring 14.750.

London Olympics

At the end of July, Mustafina competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. She helped Russia qualify to the team final in second place, and qualified to the individual all-around final in fifth place with a score of 59.966. She also qualified fifth for the uneven bars final, scoring 15.700, and eighth for the floor final, scoring 14.433.

In the team final, Mustafina contributed an all-around score of 60.266 toward the Russian team's second-place finish.

In the all-around final, she finished in third place with a score of 59.566. She earned the same score as the American Aly Raisman, but after tie-breaking rules were applied, Mustafina was awarded the bronze medal, even though she had scored lower than Raisman on every event except the uneven bars.

Mustafina went on to win the uneven bars final with a score of 16.133, ending Russia's 12-year gold medal drought in Olympic gymnastics.

In the floor final, she placed third with a score of 14.900, earning the bronze medal in a tie-breaker over Italy's Vanessa Ferrari.

On 7 August 2012, President Rustam Minnikhanov of Tatarstan congratulated Mustafina on her Olympic success. On 15 August, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded Mustafina the Order of Friendship at a special ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow. She was one of 33 Russian athletes to receive the award.

In December, she competed at the DTB Stuttgart World Cup, where the Russian team finished first.

2013

At the 2013 Russian national championships, Mustafina successfully defended her all-around title with a score of 59.850, earning a 15.450 on beam, 15.500 on bars, 13.600 on floor, and 15.300 on vault. These scores qualified her to the balance beam and uneven bars finals in first place, and to the floor exercise final in third place, but she withdrew from all but the bars final to protect her knee. She received a silver medal with the Moscow Central team and finished third in the uneven bars final, behind Anastasia Grishina (first) and Tatiana Nabieva (second).

Later, Mustafina won the all-around and team titles at the Stella Zakharova Cup. In event finals, she won gold on uneven bars and silver on balance beam after a fall on the latter.

At the 2013 European Championships in Moscow, she fell twice off the balance beam in qualifications and entered the all-around final in fourth place, with a score of 56.057. In the final, she scored 15.033 on vault, 15.133 on uneven bars, 14.400 on balance beam, and 14.466 on floor, winning the all-around title—her first individual European title—with a total of 59.032. The next day, she won the uneven bars final with a score of 15.300. She also qualified to the floor exercise final in third place, but withdrew and gave her spot to Grishina, who had been left out of the final due to the limit of two gymnasts per country.

In July, Mustafina competed at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan, Russia, alongside teammates Nabieva, Ksenia Afanasyeva, Maria Paseka, and Anna Dementyeva. Prior to the competition, her participation had been in question after she was hospitalized for flu. In the team competition, which also served as a qualification round for the individual finals, Mustafina contributed scores of 13.750 on floor, 14.950 on vault, 15.000 on uneven bars, and 15.200 on beam toward Russia's first-place finish. She qualified to the all-around final as well as the uneven bars, balance beam, and floor finals. In the all-around final, she won the title with a score of 57.900. She then won gold in the bars final and silver in the beam final. In the floor final, she fell on her last tumbling pass and finished ninth.

In October, just after turning 19, Mustafina competed at the 2013 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp. Prior to the competition, she had been sick for weeks and had been experiencing knee pain. In qualifications, she fell on her first tumbling pass on floor (two whips into a double Arabian) and crashed her second vault (round-off, half-on, full twist off), causing her to miss the finals in both events. However, she still qualified fifth for the all-around final with a score of 57.165, fifth for uneven bars, and eighth for balance beam. In the all-around final, she finished third with a total of 58.856 (14.891 on vault, 15.233 on uneven bars, 14.166 on balance beam, and 14.566 on floor), behind Simone Biles and Kyla Ross of the United States, but well ahead of the fourth-place finisher, Larisa Iordache of Romania. In the uneven bars final, she scored 15.033 and finished in third place, behind Huang Huidan and Ross. She also successfully debuted a new low to high bar transition: a full-twisting Maloney (or Seitz) caught in a mixed grip. She went on to win her first world beam title with a score of 14.900, ahead of Ross and Biles. This made her the first gymnast since Svetlana Khorkina to win a world medal on every event.

In her last competition of 2013, Mustafina helped her team finish second at the Stuttgart World Cup, competing only on balance beam.

2014

On 3 April, Mustafina successfully defended her Russian national all-around title, scoring 14.733 for a double-twisting Yurchenko vault, 14.333 on uneven bars, 15.400 on balance beam, and 15.100 on floor exercise.

In May, she competed at the 2014 European Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria. Hampered by an ankle injury, she performed on only two events in qualifications: uneven bars and balance beam. She qualified to both finals, with scores of 15.100 and 14.233, respectively. In the team final, she scored 14.700 on vault, 15.166 on bars, and 14.800 on beam, leading an inexperienced Russian team to a third-place finish behind Romania and Great Britain, which took gold and silver, respectively. In event finals, she placed second on the uneven bars with a score of 15.266, and third on balance beam with a score of 14.733.

At the Russian Cup in Penza in August, Mustafina represented Moscow alongside Paseka, Alla Sosnitskaya, and Daria Spiridonova, and they easily won the team title by five points over silver medalist Saint Petersburg. Individually, Mustafina won the all-around with a total score of 59.133. In the event finals, she won beam with a score of 15.567 and floor with a score of 14.700, and placed second on the uneven bars with a score of 15.267. At the end of the meet, she was selected—along with Paseka, Sosnitskaya, Spiridonova, Maria Kharenkova, and Ekaterina Kramarenko—to represent Russia at the 2014 World Championships in Nanning, China.

In the qualifying round at the World Championships, Mustafina scored 14.900 on vault, 15.166 on bars, 14.308 on beam, and 14.500 on floor, for a total of a 58.874. She qualified second to the all-around final, fourth on bars, seventh on beam, and fifth on floor. Russia qualified to the team final in third place, behind the United States and China. In the team final, Mustafina contributed a 15.133 on vault, 15.066 on bars, 14.766 on beam, and 14.033 on floor to Russia's third-place finish. In the all-around final, she finished fourth with a total score of 57.915, performing well on vault and bars but making mistakes on beam and floor. She would later state that a fever was the cause of her poor performance. In the uneven bars final, she finished in sixth place with a score of 15.100. She then won bronze medals in the balance beam and floor exercise finals, scoring 14.166 on beam and 14.733 on floor to beat out Asuka Teramoto of Japan and MyKayla Skinner of the United States. This made her the ninth-most decorated female artistic gymnast at the World Championships, with a total of 11 medals.

At the Stuttgart World Cup in late 2014, Mustafina fell on uneven bars and balance beam and made several errors on floor exercise, causing her to finish fifth after being in second place in the first rotation. In December, after competing for two seasons without a coach, she began working with Sergei Starkin, who coached world champion Denis Ablyazin.

2015

In order to recover from injuries and stress, Mustafina did not compete at the 2015 Russian Championships or the 2015 European Championships. She returned to competition at the 2015 European Games in Baku in June with Viktoria Komova and Seda Tutkhalyan. They won the team final, and in the individual all-around final, Mustafina again placed first with a score of 58.566. She also received a gold medal on bars (15.400) and silver on floor (14.200, her best score of the competition on that apparatus).

On 18 September, Mustafina announced that she was withdrawing from the World Championships in Glasgow due to back pain.

2016

At the end of March, Mustafina was reportedly hospitalized for back pain. On 6 April, she returned to competition at the Russian Championships in Penza. In the first round, she performed watered-down routines on bars and beam, which scored 15.333 and 14.400, respectively. In the team final the next day, she scored 15.300 on bars and 14.133 on beam, helping her team to a second-place finish. In the event finals, she won bronze medals on both bars and beam, scoring 15.200 and 14.800, respectively.

At the European Championships in Bern in June, she qualified first to the uneven bars and balance beam finals, scoring 15.166 and 14.733, respectively. She also performed a downgraded floor routine, for which she scored 13.533. In the team final, she received a 15.333 on bars, 14.800 on beam, and 13.466 on floor. Russia won the gold with a team total of 175.212, five points ahead of the second-place British team. In the uneven bars final, Mustafina won a bronze medal with a score of 15.100, followed by a gold medal on beam with a 15.100: her fifth European title and 12th medal.

Her next appearance was at the Russian Cup. In qualifying, she placed fifth after failing to perform an acrobatic series on beam and falling twice on the uneven bars. In the all-around final, she placed third, with one fall on bars. This was her first all-around competition since the 2015 European Games, which she won. Despite withdrawing from event finals to work with a physiotherapist in Moscow, she was named to the Olympic team for Russia along with first-year senior and Russian Cup champion Angelina Melnikova, 2015 World Championships team member Tutkhalyan, and 2015 world champions Paseka and Spiridonova.

Rio Olympics

At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Mustafina qualified to the all-around final with a total of 58.098, despite a fall on the balance beam. She also qualified in second place to the uneven bars final with a score of 15.833, and scored 15.166 on vault and 14.066 on floor. Russia qualified to the team final in third place, behind the United States and China.

In the team final on 9 August, she helped Russia win a silver medal behind the USA, with a total team score of 176.688. Mustafina contributed a 15.133 on vault, 15.933 on bars, 14.958 on beam, and 14.000 on floor.

Two days later, Mustafina competed in the individual all-around final and scored 58.665 (15.200 on vault, 15.666 on uneven bars, 13.866 on balance beam, and 13.933 on floor). She placed third behind Americans Simone Biles and Aly Raisman, repeating her bronze-medal performance from the 2012 Olympics.

On 14 August, she competed in the uneven bars final. She scored 15.900 and defended her 2012 title, winning the gold medal ahead of silver medalist Madison Kocian of the United States and bronze medalist Sophie Scheder of Germany. This made Mustafina the first female gymnast since Svetlana Khorkina to win the same event at two consecutive Olympics.

With three medals—one gold, one silver, and one bronze—Mustafina was the most decorated Russian athlete in Rio.

Influences

When asked about being compared to Khorkina following her success at the 2010 World Championships, Mustafina said, "I have no idols and never have. Svetlana was, of course, an amazing gymnast."

In response to a question about her gymnastics role models, Mustafina praised Nastia Liukin's "elegant and beautiful performances with difficult elements" and Ksenia Afanasyeva's "strong and beautiful gymnastics".

Personal life

Mustafina began dating Russian bobsledder Alexey Zaytsev in the fall of 2015 after meeting at a hospital where both were recovering from sports injuries. They married on 3 November 2016 in his hometown of Krasnodar.

In January 2017, it was announced that Mustafina was pregnant and that the baby was due in July. Mustafina gave birth to a girl named Alisa (Алиса) Mustafina-Zaytseva on 9 June 2017.