Irina Viner Usmanova

Career

Irina Viner was born in Samarkand, Uzbek SSR, Soviet Union. Her father, Alexander, was a People's Artist of the USSR. Her mother, Zoya, was a doctor. As a young girl Viner wanted to take ballet but was discouraged, so she took up gymnastics at the age of 11.

Viner was a three-time champion of the Uzbek SSR and graduated from the Uzbek State Institute of Physical Culture. She worked as coach of the national team in rhythmic gymnastics in Tashkent, and under her tutelage, Venera Zaripova became her first successful gymnast. In 1990, Viner briefly moved to Great Britain to coach the British national team.

In 1992, Viner was invited to become head coach of the Russian national team and moved to Moscow. Since 2001, Viner is the head coach of the Olympic Training Center of the Russian national rhythmic gymnastics in Novogorsk and in 2008 became president of the Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation.

In 2015, Viner was awarded the Olympic Order in recognition of her outstanding achievements in the global sports, this makes Viner the first gymnastics coach to be a recipient of the award. Thomas Bach, the President of the International Olympic Committee personally handed the necklace and presented the award.

Viner has said about receiving the award: "I never expected that I would be awarded such an important Order. It was an honor that President of IOC, Thomas Bach arrived here. Sport is the only war that has a peaceful end. I believe that the whole world of gymnastics was awarded, for women and girls. It is important that we train together and help other countries - That is why a lot of representatives of other countries train in Russia. We will do our best in order that this kind of sport remains in the Olympic program. I think we will never be thrown to the sidelines and rhythmic gymnastics will remain in the Olympic Family".

Notable pupils

Viner has trained many Russian Olympic/World/European/World Cup medal winners, including:

Individual rhythmic gymnasts:

Notable Group rhythmic gymnasts:

She has also trained the Russian Group that won the 2012 Summer Olympics Gold in Group All-around:
(Ksenia Dudkina, Uliana Donskova, Anastasia Bliznyuk, Alina Makarenko, Anastasia Nazarenko, Karolina Sevastyanova)

Counselor/Coordinator for Russian Group:

2016 Summer Olympics Group gold medalists
(Maria Tolkacheva, Anastasiia Tatareva, Anastasia Maksimova, Anastasia Bliznyuk, Vera Biryukova)

2008 Summer Olympics Group gold medalists
(Margarita Aliychuk, Anna Gavrilenko, Tatiana Gorbunova, Elena Posevina, Daria Shkurikhina, Natalia Zueva)

2004 Summer Olympics Group gold medalists
(Olesya Belugina, Olga Glatskikh, Tatiana Kurbakova, Natalia Lavrova, Yelena Posevina, Elena Murzina)

2000 Summer Olympics Group gold medalists
(Irina Belova, Yelena Chalamova, Natalia Lavrova, Mariya Netesova, Vyera Shimanskaya, Irina Zilber)

International gymnasts:

Head of Famous Russian rhythmic gymnast coaches

Although Viner is the Head of the Russian National rhythmic gymnastics Federation. the Russian gymnasts have their own personal coaches and trainers supervising their daily training and in competitions. Notable Russian rhythmic gymnast coaches include:

Personal life

Viner is married to Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov, who was also born in Uzbekistan. She and Usmanov originally met in their youth at a sports hall in Tashkent, where he was involved in fencing; they reconnected many years later in Moscow. She has a son from a previous marriage, Anton, who was born in 1973 and later adopted by Usmanov.

Usmanov is Muslim, but Viner is Jewish and is interested in Kabbalah, but does not practice it. She told that her pupils venerates myrrh-pouring icons before every competition. Among her many state awards, she was given the "Living Legend" prize by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia in 2007.