USA Gymnastics has published an article about Yuliya Brown and her amazingly long and successful tumbling career.
Yuliya Brown has, at times, been the best female tumbler in the world, but circumstances always appeared to keep her from winning an individual gold medal at Tumbling Worlds. She has already returned to the top ranks of US tumbling this year and has already qualified to compete in Tumbling World Cup competition. After one of the longest careers in tumbling, this is her apparently her last year of competition, we are all waiting to see how she does and wishing her the best.
Yuliya Brown has dominated women’s tumbling in the United States off and on for over 20 years. She has won National Tumbling Championships spread over two decades, doing tumbling passes that most male artistic gymnasts cannot do, much less most female artistic gymnasts. At age 35, she again has dominated the 2011 Elite Challenge tumbling competition and will again be representing the United States in World Cup tumbling competition.
Yuliya came to the United States with both of her Russian tumbling coaches and they continued the training they had begun in Moscow. When Yuliya Brown first came to United States, she was doing long tumbling passes with double layouts. A few years later she was winning regularly with passes including a variety of combinations of double layouts, full-ins, double layout-1/2 outs and double twisting double backs.
Yuliya was the best female tumbler in the World for a number of years in the early 90s, while she was competing and winning National Championships in the United States, but since Yuliya Brown was not yet an American citizen, she could not compete at the World Championships. It has always been a regret that she was never able to win the World Championship title she deserved by virtue of her tumbling skills and abilities. After her return to the sport, untimely injuries always seemed to keep her out of the top spot. Regardless, her tumbling career has been incredibly successful and she has more chances to medal in her final year.
This year is going to be the last year of an incredible tumbling career for a remarkable athlete. It will be interesting and inspirational for all of us to see how Yuliya Brown finishes out her already enviable tumbling resume.
