Maxi Gnauck

One of the most successful female German gymnasts, Maxi Gnauck is a retired artistic gymnast from East Germany. Born on 10^th October 1964 in Berlin, Maxi took up gymnastics at the age of five and won her first medal at the mere age of eight. Her first international success came at the age of 13.

Maxi was one of the first girls to perform a triple twist on the floor event. She is perceived as one of the best uneven bars performers of all time and was an exceptional tumbler as well. She has an impressive record at the World and European Championships, where she bagged five titles in each. In her only Olympic appearance, she bagged four medals and led her national team to win the bronze medal. In the all-around final event, she had a tie with Nadia Comăneci.

Maxi announced her retirement in April 1986 and went for a four-year sports coaching course at Leipzig University. Working as an aide at a kids’ summer camp in 1988, she got severely injured, broke her C5 vertebra, and became almost paralysed. Later, three of her vertebrae were reinforced with a metal plate.

Due to the reunification of East and West Germany, she took initial coaching positions in South Africa and Great Britain temporarily, for a few months in 1990. Between 1993 and 2004, she worked as a full-time coach in Norderstedt, Germany, at the Harksheide Gymnastics Center. In 2005, she started working at the Artistic and Apparatus Gymnastics Center together with her former teammate Roland Brückner in Switzerland.

Here are some of her major career achievements:

• At the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, Maxi bagged the gold medal in uneven bars, silver in all-around and bronze medals in team and floor exercise events.
• She won a gold, a silver and a bronze medal in 1979, three gold medals and a bronze in 1981, a gold and a bronze medal in 1983 in different events at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships.
• At the European Women’s Gymnastics Championships, Maxi earned a silver and a bronze medal in 1979, four gold medals and a silver in 1981 and a gold and a silver medal in 1985 in various events.
• She bagged gold medals in uneven bars and floor exercise events, and silver medal in the all-around event in 1980 and a gold in uneven bars and a bronze medal in the floor exercise in 1982 at the World Cup.
• At the 1984 Friendship Games, she won gold medals in uneven bars and floor exercise, a silver medal in the team event and bronze medals in all-around and vault events.
• In 2000, Maxi became the first German gymnast to be inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.