Rozalia Galiyeva

Personal life

Galiyeva was born on 26 April 1977 in Olmaliq, Uzbek SSR (now Uzbekistan). She became a Russian citizen in 1995. With her husband Mikhail, she has one son, Nikita, and one daughter, Tatyana.

1991 to 1994

Galiyeva began competing internationally for the USSR in 1991, sharing in the team gold medal at the 1991 World Championships in Indianapolis.

She competed with the Unified Team at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. She exceeded expectations in the preliminary competition, finishing 8th and qualifying for the individual all-around final behind teammates Svetlana Boguinskaya and Tatiana Lysenko.

However, before the all-around, coach Alexander Alexandrov pulled Galiyeva from the competition, citing a knee injury. Her replacement was teammate Tatiana Gutsu. Although Gutsu had fallen from the balance beam in the team finals, she was renowned for her extreme difficulty and the reigning European all-around champion and a Worlds medalist on beam, vault and bars. It was later revealed that Galiyeva's injury was non-existent, and that the substitution was made because Gutsu was considered to have better medal-winning potential. Indeed, Gutsu emerged from the Olympic all-around as the gold medalist. While Gutsu split her prize money with Galiyeva, Galiyeva always remained angry about this turn of events.

After the 1992 Olympics, Galiyeva competed for Uzbekistan.

For Russia

After receiving Russian citizenship in 1995, Galiyeva began competing for the Russian team. Her first major meet for Russia was the European Championships in 1996 where she won gold on balance beam, beating such renowned gymnasts as Gina Gogean and former teammate Svetlana Boguinskaya, who was now competing for Belarus.

As the only returning Olympian, Galiyeva was named team captain of the Russian squad at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. However, these Olympics would also prove to be less than positive for her. The Russian squad was disappointed in the team finals, where they finished second to the U.S. after leading for the first half of the competition. Galiyeva, along with other gymnasts such as Lavinia Miloșovici, Simona Amanar and Svetlana Khorkina, were severely distracted by the rowdy American crowd. In the team finals, Galiyeva competed on floor exercise just after Kerri Strug's vault that won the gold for the USA; the cheering crowd watched Galiyeva with more attention than they had her teammates, but the spotlight was elsewhere. The situation was repeated two days later in the all-around finals, when Galiyeva was performing, again on floor exercise, while American favorite Shannon Miller was on balance beam, and Galiyeva could not properly hear her music over the deafening crowd noise when Miller's impressive routine ended, and again when the score was flashed.

Individually, Galiyeva finished in the top 10 (7th) in the all-around competition, fulfilling her goal to compete, but again she was disappointed. A balance beam medal seemed easily in her reach in event finals (her team optionals and all-around beam scores would have been enough to tie her for first and second respectively). However, although she started confidently and at first looked to be a contender for the gold, she fell on a front somersault near the end of her routine and finished in 7th place on that event. She had also earned a slot in the event finals for vault, but finished just shy of a medal there, in 4th.

After Atlanta, Galiyeva participated in exhibition tours and competitions in the United States. Her last major competition was the World University Games in 1997.

Post-competitive career

After retiring from competition, Galiyeva performed in an ice skating show, Moscow Circus on Ice, and judged gymnastics competitions in Russia.

Competitive history

Major results