About Elena Mukhina
Elena Vyacheslavovna Mukhina was a Soviet gymnast who won the all-around title at the 1978 World Championships in Strasbourg, France. Her career was on the rise, and she was widely touted as the next great gymnastics star until 1979, when she broke a leg and missed several competitions. The rushed recovery from that injury, combined with pressure to master a dangerous and difficult tumbling move caused her to break her neck two weeks before the opening of the 1980 Summer Olympics, leaving her permanently quadriplegic. Mukhina won the 1976 Soviet junior championships, though she did not qualify as a member of the Olympic team. In 1977, at the 1977 European Championships, she won silver and the all-around and three event titles in the balance beam, uneven bars, and floor exercise finals, along with a bronze medal on vault. There she ruptured her Achilles tendon and continued competing against medical advice, and she won the all-around silver medal.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.