Oksana Chusovitina who qualified for her 8th Olympics earlier this months told TASS she plans on retiring after Tokyo:
“This will be my last Olympics, I’ll retire and won’t be an active athlete but I’ll stay in the sport. I’ll be helping and working on the development of the children and youth sports in Uzbekistan, my life will still be in the sport.”
Of course, this is not the first time Chusovitina announced her upcoming retirement. Every time, she ended up changing her mind and continuing competing.
Chusovitina said she withdrew from all the competitions until the end of the year but might still go to Voronin Cup next month. She was dealing with Achilles pain at the World Championships and likely wants to get some rest before resuming her preparation for the Olympics.
Chusovitina made a mistake on her second vault at Worlds and was not able to make the vault final. However, she is working on upgrades and hopes to finally bring Uzbekistan an Olympic medal:
“I’m happy that I qualified [to the Olympics], the World Championships were mentally hard for me. After I made a mistake on the second vault, I was upset, but I had to continue and qualify to the Olympics through the all-around. I’m happy I managed to do that. I don’t want to just participate, I’m preparing difficult vaults and, of course, I’m going to the Olympics to win a medal.”
Support Gymnovosti on Patreon from only $1 a month and help us bring to you even more awesome gymnastics coverage!
Buy cool gymnastics-themed t-shirts, hoodies, pillows, phone cases, and more at our store on Teepublic!
You do you Chuso! (See you in Paris 🙂 )