Content area
Full Text
Despite a serious injury in 1992, Bulgaria's Silvia Mitova couldn't be happier today
ONE of Bulgaria's s great eye-catching female gymnasts in the last years of the 20th century, Silvia Mitova is modestly enjoying a more satisfying legacy as the valorous survivor of an injury that curtailed her career. Mitova's soulful dance style and difficult tumbling earned her spots in the floor exercise finals at the 1991 world championships and '92 Olympics. Shortly after the Barcelona Games, on September 19, 1992, she was nearly paralyzed in a training accident. The injury and tedious recovery process, however, would come to reveal far more soul and courage than any of Mitova's acclaimed competitive performances.
"Practice was over, but I was learning a new trick and I really wanted to go back and try it," recalls Mitova of the dangerously decisive moment in her Sofia gym.
While throwing a double-twisting double salto from the trampoline into the pit, she crashed headfirst and dislocated her C-5 and C-6 vertebrae. (Mitova says she believes she landed on one of the tires used to line the bottom of the pit, over which a foam pad was placed; and that tires were used there because there was not enough money to completely fill the pit with foam.)
Rushing to Mitova's aid was her coach and father Zarko Mitov, an ex-gymnast who met his coaching partner/wife Maja while both were performing in the circus. The former Maja Blagoeva, Silvia's mother competed in three European championships, the '70 and '74 world championships, and the '72 Olympics. Zarko and Maja had reluctantly begun training Silvia (who was born June 19, 1976) as a gymnast when she was seven.
"It was difficult for them to allow me to start gymnastics," recalls Mitova. "I tried ice skating, swimming and even rhythmic gymnastics, but I wanted to be an artistic gymnast. I would ask my mother if I could start and she would say, `Go ask your father.' I would go to him and he would say, 'Go ask your mother."'
By age 13, Mitova had earned international status. She placed fourth all-around at the '89 Junior Europeans, and second in the same meet two years later. At the '91 worlds, Mitova finished sixth on floor and...