Olympics Rio 2016: 41-year-old Uzbekistan gymnast says 'let's get ready for Tokyo 2020'

ByReuters

Published 14/08/2016 at 20:54 GMT

Not content with seventh place at her seventh Olympics, Uzbek gymnast Oksana Chusovitina declared on Sunday she would be back to compete in Tokyo in 2020 at the age of 45.

Oksana Chusovitina (UZB) of Uzbekistan competes on the vault during the women's qualifications

Image credit: Reuters

Minutes after taking part in the vault against gymnasts younger than her 17-year-old son Alisher, Chusovitina breezily announced she would keep going.

"Of course I'm not entirely happy with today's performance, but what are you going to do? So we are going to move forward," she said.

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Over the course of an extraordinary career, the diminutive Chusovitina has competed for the Soviet Union, Germany - where she lived for a period while Alisher was receiving successful treatment for leukaemia - and Uzbekistan.

Her first Olympic appearance was at Barcelona in 1992 where she won a team gold with the Unified Team of athletes from the former USSR.

She flirted with the idea of retiring after each of the last two Games, but there was no hesitation when she was asked if she would be back in Tokyo for Olympics number eight.

"Definitely," she replied. "I've already taken this decision... I just woke up in the morning and decided.

"I'd like carry out an experiment to see how long it will take before I've had enough."

Her gymnastics lifespan almost defies belief, as the next oldest competitor in Rio after her is 32-year-old Vasiliki Millousi from Greece.

Vault winner Simone Biles of the United States paid tribute to her. "She's amazing. If there's one person that could do it, it is only her," said the American.

After the competition, in a special tribute that she described as a pleasant surprise, spectators were shown a short video of highlights from her long career.

She bowed, waved and blew kisses to the crowd in what many must have assumed was her final Olympic appearance. Not so, said Chusovitina.

And what does her son think of her decision to carry on? "He doesn't know yet," she said.

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