Milosovici, Amanar, Gogean, which had the best career?

[judgejudy27]

The 3 most famous Romanian gymnasts of the 90s with all due respect to Bontas, Olaru, and Marinescu were clearly Milo, Amanar, and Gogean. Milo and Gogean came up together in the arly 90s and continued into their primes into the mid 90s. Amanar came up in the mid 90s and continued on to the 2000 Games. Which do you feel had the best overall career of this famous code whoreing generally unpopular but very successful trio of gymnasts. This isnt about who you feel is best gymnast subjectively speaking but whose accomplishments do you feel is best overall and you would most like to have:

Milosovici- 2 time Olympic AA bronze medalist, 94 World AA silver medalist, 95 World AA bronze medalist. 91 World Champion vault, 92 World Champion bars , 92 Olympic Champion vault, 92 Olympic Champion floor, 93 World Champion beam. 93 World silver medalist vault, 94 World silver medalist floor, 91 World bronze medalist beam, 96 World bronze medalist floor. In 3 appearances at Europeans or the European Cup 8 individual medals including 3 gold and 2 AA medals. Team silver and bronze at the 92 and 96 Games. Team gold at 94 and 95 Worlds. Team bronze at 91 Worlds. Most famous for winning atleast 1 World or Olmpic gold on each individual apparatus but never a World or Olympic AA title.

Gina Gogean- 96 Olympic AA silver medalist, 93 World AA silver medalist, 3 time World Champion on floor- 95, 96, 97. 94 and 96 World Champion on vault. 97 World Champion on beam. Bronzes on beam and vault at 96 Olympics. silver and bronze on floor at the 93 and 94 Worlds. Bronze on beam at the 93 Worlds, bronze on vault at the 95 and 97 Worlds. In 3 appearances at the European Gymnastics Championships 8 total individual medals including 94 AA European Champion, 92 AA silver medalist, 94 beam gold, and 92 floor gold. Team golds at the 94, 95, and 97 Worlds. Team silver and bronze at the 92 and 96 Olympics. The only of this trio to never manage an Olympic Gold medal. Still her 6 individual golds at Worlds is the most of this trio in combined Olympic/World individual golds. Her European AA title was the biggest AA title won by this trio outside of Amanar's belated and bizarre Olympic AA gold.

Simona Amanar- 2000 Olympic AA Champion Olympic AA bronze medalist in 1996, World AA silver medalist in 1997. Olympic Champion on vault in 1996, World Champion on vault in 1995 and 1997. World silver medalist on vault in 1996 and 1999. Olympic silver medalist on floor in 1996, Olympic bronze medalist on floor in 2000, World silver medalist on floor in 1999. In 4 appearances at the European Championships and European Cup has 12 individual medals. These include silver in the AA at the 95 European Cup and 98 European Championships. Also gold on vault at the 95 European Cup, 96 European Championships, and 2000 European Championships. Gold on floor at the 95 European Cup and gold on bars at the 96 European Championships (3 way tie with Khorkina and Podkopayeva).

[BigB08822]

This one is sooo tough. I have a hard time factoring in Amanar's Olympic AA gold as much as it probably should. I feel like Gogean's list was the most impressive, she just never managed an Olympic gold. I give her a little leeway because, IMO, Milo did not deserve the gold on floor in 1992. At the least it should have been a tie but how she scored a 10.000 with a hop out of her punch front, I will never know.

Gogean
Milo


Amanar

[judgejudy27]

In Atlanta the trio finished within 0.08 of each other in the AA and all managed to share the podium despite finishing nearly 2 full tenths back of the winner. Amanar would have beaten the other 2 easily there without a big mistake on floor but she was the 1 of the 3 who was really at her career peak at that moment.

I found Gogean the most boring elite gymnast of all time, even Milosovici and Amanar who I both also found boring seemed exciting compared to her, but now I am getting in subjective views on their gymnastics as opposed to who had the best career. Watching Gina on floor, beam, and bars was like watching a robot go to work.

[ioana]

Watching Gina on floor, beam, and bars was like watching a robot go to work.

And the irony of it all is that she used to have a Suk release on bars and trained a layout full and a full swingdown on beam (is that a Rulfova?). Then again, most Deva gymnasts around that time would either get bogged down with injuries or turned into Rombots...

[pollyanna]

And the irony of it all is that she used to have a Suk release on bars ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQtx2Mz8DUg

[judgejudy27]

I found Milo, Amanar, Gogean all got less interesting as their careers went along. Amanar in 96 I liked far more than Milo and Gogean at that point, but of course Milo and Gogean had been on the scene for years. I had liked Milo and Gogean much more earlier in the quad and at the 92 Games. As for Amanar I liked her less as she got closer to the 2000 Games. I think what happens with all these star Romanians is they got Belu-ed. When they are younger they are more interested in doing more difficult and original skills and having their own way of doing gymnastics, and as they spent more time at the National training centre they get cloned and stuck into the safe COP-milking mode that Belu likes all his gymnasts be under.

[vesperholly]

And the irony of it all is that she used to have a Suk release on bars and trained a layout full and a full swingdown on beam (is that a Rulfova?). Then again, most Deva gymnasts around that time would either get bogged down with injuries or turned into Rombots...

She even competed the full in on beam but fell and never tried it again. Shame. Poor Gina, she had quite an impact on gymnastics but it wasn't a great one. She didn't deserve the vilification she got after winning beam at 97 Worlds over Kui Yuanyuan, not her fault the judges played it safe.

I actually like 96 Amanar (who knows why) but by 00 she was a full-on Rombot.

I'm going to have to give this one to Milo on personality alone ... that is, existence of a personality at all.

[Cloudy_Gumdrops]

I found Milo, Amanar, Gogean all got less interesting as their careers went along. Amanar in 96 I liked far more than Milo and Gogean at that point, but of course Milo and Gogean had been on the scene for years. I had liked Milo and Gogean much more earlier in the quad and at the 92 Games. As for Amanar I liked her less as she got closer to the 2000 Games. I think what happens with all these star Romanians is they got Belu-ed. When they are younger they are more interested in doing more difficult and original skills and having their own way of doing gymnastics, and as they spent more time at the National training centre they get cloned and stuck into the safe COP-milking mode that Belu likes all his gymnasts be under.

Totally spot on.

Thankfully, the Romanian program is starting to recover from the Belu era and actually has some interesting gymnasts coming up.

[judgejudy27]

This one is sooo tough. I have a hard time factoring in Amanar's Olympic AA gold as much as it probably should. I feel like Gogean's list was the most impressive, she just never managed an Olympic gold. I give her a little leeway because, IMO, Milo did not deserve the gold on floor in 1992. At the least it should have been a tie but how she scored a 10.000 with a hop out of her punch front, I will never know.

Gogean
Milo


Amanar

Not questioning your rankings but wanted to point out Milo won 2 individual golds at the 92 Olympics, not just the floor gold but also tied for the vault gold. Also wanted to ask you though if you feel Milo's floor gold in Barcelona was questionable what did you think of Gina's beam gold in 1997 or was that not factored much into your accessment of her career.

[Rob]

This is tough, but I think I'd have to go Gogean, Milo, Amanar based on number of titles at the big events (regardless of whether I agreed with the results). I think you are missing Amanar's team results though, which include some of the same results as the other 2, plus an Olympic team gold in 2000. So she's got the most Olympic golds even though I too have a really hard time counting her AA Olympic gold in the 2000* Games. Anyway, she won Olympic gold in 2 Olympics.

I also think all 3 got less interesting as time went on. After 1992, Gogean always looked somewhere between bored and miserable so I never enjoyed her gymnastics. Amanar could show explosiveness, but she was choppy and I nearly always hated, hated, hated her floor choreography. I liked Milo best of the 3 - she showed some personality in 1992 anyway, but then went rombot like the others.

[BigB08822]

Not questioning your rankings but wanted to point out Milo won 2 individual golds at the 92 Olympics, not just the floor gold but also tied for the vault gold. Also wanted to ask you though if you feel Milo's floor gold in Barcelona was questionable what did you think of Gina's beam gold in 1997 or was that not factored much into your accessment of her career.

Yes, I know Milo won vault gold. I'm just saying that one of her golds seemed undeserved and that only leaves her with 1 title over Gogean instead of 2. Not really logical but how I am doing it in my head. As for 97 beam, sure it was a travesty but Gogean has plenty of other titles so it isn't as if it eliminated her only world title.

[judgejudy27]

Yes, I know Milo won vault gold. I'm just saying that one of her golds seemed undeserved and that only leaves her with 1 title over Gogean instead of 2. Not really logical but how I am doing it in my head. As for 97 beam, sure it was a travesty but Gogean has plenty of other titles so it isn't as if it eliminated her only world title.

OK thanks. Well the 97 beam title was a big one since it gave her World titles on 3 different events in addition to her strings of relative dominance on floor and even vault. Milosovici did win a World title on every event but never had a dominant streak on any of them. Amanar was dominant on vault but never won any other event at something bigger than Europeans.

It is interesting none of them won a major AA title. I dont think Gogean or Amanar were ever really considered the best though so would have always needed alot of help to do it. Milosovici had a great shot of winning the 92 Olympic AA or 94 World AA had she not made some mistakes on bars and beam both times.

[Beefcake]

Oh, my. This poll is akin to asking

"Which color is the Most! Exciting! ... your choices are beige, tan, and Todd Eldredge"

[BigB08822]

Oh, my. This poll is akin to asking

"Which color is the Most! Exciting! ... your choices are beige, tan, and Todd Eldredge"

[judgejudy27]

Close poll so far:

Milo Karpenko, pollyanna, swissskate, vesperholly 4 33.33%
Amanar Avyleonya, Buzz, Choupette, ssminnow 4 33.33%
Gogean BigB08822, ioana, judgejudy27, my little pony 4 33.33%

If one counted Raducan's career she would be an interesting poll option against these 3, especialy since she was the real AA Champion of the 2000 Olympics (well atleast more than Amanar was). Maybe I should have had a poll including her too.

[Quintuple]

And I certainly am not going to tip the voting one way or the other. Of course if we just do the math, there's not much to vote on. When I was a kid in '92 I was really, really excited about Gogean (based on seeing her at '92 Euros, and was disappointed not to see much at the Olympics), but right away her gymnastics got boring. Amanar I'd always watch because of her big skills and lightness, but actually even from the beginning I was never a Milo fan. I felt that she got the upper hand from the judges over better gymnasts many times. The big one is that I felt Onodi should have been sole winner of gold on both VT and FX at the '92 Olympics.

[Loves_Shizuka]

Milo was the most likeable - and also the most overrated. Some of her scores (post 92) are a bit
Gogean was my favourite of the three (I don't know why, I just really took to her) but never quite had "it". I can't believe she went from having a Suk to the most awful bars of any of the top gymnasts. I liked her beam though.
Amanar had the most impressive skills but I was TOTALLY bored by her.

These ladies were fantastic gymnasts and atleltes, who earned amazing success, but they had nothing on Silivas or Dobre IMO.

Btw, slightly OT, but I've heard from a few different places that Milo and a few other Romanian gymnasts were in some kind of topless movie - or something - anyone else heard this??

[briancoogaert]

Milo is definitely my favorite, even if her presence was worse and worse over the years.
She had the most exciting behavior in her early years and her grumpy face from 1993 to 1996 !
The finest and most elegant would be Gogean, but boring robot.
The strongest in term of skills and abilities was probably Amanar. And she looked really nice.

But hey, Milo is the one with a Gold at every event (except the AA). Gold at Olys on FX and VT, Gold at Worlds at BB and UB.
Amanar doesn't have any Gold at BB and Gogean at UB (but are both gold medalist at AA)

[Loves_Shizuka]

^Yea, what was up with Milo; she was like a cheery breath of fresh air in 92; from then on she looked ... less so.

[briancoogaert]

But to be fair with Milo, she had to be the leader of the Romanian team from 1993 to 1996. I think she did a very good job to her team. And I have the feeling that she had to forget her personal achivements to let Gogean and Amanar shining in 1995 and 1996.