Natalia SHAPOSHNIKOVA

The best international tournament for Nataliya Shaposhnikova, who took up gymnastics in 1970, was probably the 1980 Olympic Games, where she won golds in vault and team event and bronzes in balance beam and floor exercise. Shaposhnikova made her international début at the 1977 World Cup where she won the vault event, a feat which she repeated the next year. At the 1978 World Championships, Shaposhnikova won gold in the team event and bronze in individual all-around. At the 1979 World Championships, Shaposhnikova was not as successful, winning only silver in team event, but at the European Championships held at the same year, she did well, winning the title on beam, silver in floor exercise and bronzes in individual all-around and vault. Shaposhnikova was also Soviet champion in individual all-around (1979), vault (1977) and balance beam (1979). She retired from sports after the 1980 Olympics and later married Pavel Sut, who was a World Champion in the team event in 1981. Shaposhnikova and her husband at first worked as gymnastics coaches in Minsk, Belarus, later in Germany, until they settled in Little Falls, New Jersey in the middle of 1990s, where they own a gymnastics club Gymnastika.