The mighty gold-medal winning Unified Team from 91. 
 

  From right, Kalinina, Chusovitina, Grudneva, Galieva, Boginskaya,
 Lyssenko, Gutsu and head coach, Alexander Alexandrov. 
 

 
  Oksana began the sport of gymnastics when she was just 7
 in the town of Tashkent, Uzbekistan when her older brother 
 was a gymnast at a local sports club. With her obvious talent, 
 Oksana captured gold at the 88 USSR Jr. Championships in both
 the AA and floor exercise. In 90 she helped her Soviet Team 
 capture 1st place at the Jr. Team European Championships where
 she finished 2nd in the AA.  She then became a senior and went 
 on to win the 90 US Olympic Cup and every gold medal at the 90
 World Sports Fair except for the uneven bars. As a last minute
 replacement for her team at the 90 Goodwill Games, she won
 the vault.
 
 She had a great meet at the 90 USA vs. USSR where scored 
 a 10 on the FX with a dramatic and powerful routine finishing 
 2nd to Kim Zmeskal (meaning she should have won) and beating 
 such greats like Lysenko, Kalinina, Laschenova, Groshkova and 
 future olympic champions Miller and Gutsu. In 91, she again
 helped her Soviet team, this time to World gold as a last 
 minute replacement. She and won individual medal on on FX(tied 
 with Bontas) with her great difficulty and power and finished 
 2nd (tied with Onodi) on vault which any sane person would 
 say she deserved to win (see Vaulting History page). During 
 the 92 Worlds, she again qualified for the vault and floor 
 exercises where she got a bronze on vault (should have
 been gold) and finished 7th on FX due to an out-of-bounds
 on her layout full-out.
 
  Of course Oksana represented the Unified Team at the 92 
 olympic games where she failed to qualify into any event
 finals although she did replace Boginskaya on FX where she 
 finished a dismal 5th due to a mishap on her layout full-out. 
 Perhaps she would have medaled in the vault if she replaced 
 Boginskaya but would probably have also been robbed, again. 
 Overall, not a great olympics for Oksana where she started early 
 with a fall during compulsory bars. She did however share Gutsu's
 moment of happiness when she was there to support her friend 
 during her AA win. 
 
   In 93 it was Uzbekistan that Oksana would solely represent
 and she was happy about this. Now there would be no problem 
 qualifying into the AA competition as it was almost impossible
 for her under the Unified Team. Also, Oksana had a new, more
 developed body which she had to work with. Oksana went to 93 
 Worlds and finished 3rd on the vault and a disappointing 8th
 on the bars with 2 falls. In 1994, Oksana did not attend the
 Worlds but did have okay meets at the Goodwill Games and 
 Asian Games. At the 1995 Worlds, she arrived 20 years old, 
 only Boginskaya was older at these Worlds. She finished 6th 
 on the vault although many think she should have medaled and 
 19th in the AA due to mistakes and bad judging.
 
  A newly revived Oksana started off her 96 season with a
 3rd place finish at the American Cup and gold medals on 
 the vault and floor at the DTB Cup where she also finished 
 4th on beam and bars. Oksana would have a great meet at the
 Olympic AA in Atlanta hitting every event although she has
 no medal to show for it. Underscoring gave her only a 10th place
 finish in the AA and she made no event final qualifications. 
 Just competing in the AA was good enough for Oksana when she
 said "When I competed for the Soviet Union, I never reached 
 the overall finals, so Atlanta was a great result!". Hopefully 
 Sydney will be a better result with better judging. Oksana 
 almost retired after Atlanta but she dicided not to because
 of her love of the sport.
  
  In 1997 she would have one of her best competitive seasons
 ever with a 1st in the Grand Prix of Rome event beating 
 Simona Amanar and Elena Piskun, and a 4th AA finish in 
 the American Cup due to low start values and the new COP.
 She dominated Cottbus winning every event but vault where
 she finished 2nd. She would have to miss the World 
 Championhips due to exhaustion and family problems. She came 
 back strong for the last competition of 97 which was
 Novgorod the Great where she captured 3 silver medals on 
 every event but the beam where she finished 4th because 
 of 2 falls.
 
  To this day, Oksana is still with her longtime coach, 
 Svetlana Kuznetsova in Tashkent where she trains with 
 the Uzbek girls. Oksana hopes to coach the Uzbek team 
 to Sydney as the team caption. After her career, which
 hopefully won't be for a while, she plans on coaching.
 
  Oksana has been a strong competitor and is known to the 
 gymnastics world as one of the best and most powerful 
 tumblers ever with her great technique and difficulty 
 on the floor exercise. Her difficulty has not dropped 
 throughout the years at all. She can still throw her 
 full-twisting double layout on floor and has upgraded 
 all her events. She has already left an impact in the 
 gymnastics world and will surely be missed when she 
 retires. She will be known as the friendly, powerful 
 gymnast who kept on going even through many changes, 
 bad and good, and through a long career.