Anna Pavlova

Anna Anatolyevna Pavlova (А́нна Анато́льевна Па́влова; born 6 September 1987) is a Russian-born artistic gymnast who won two bronze medals at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, and represented Russia in other international competitions.

Pavlova first emerged on the international gymnastics scene in 2000, winning a gold medal on the uneven bars at the Junior European Championships.

Although she was too young to compete as a senior at the World Championships in 2001, she was allowed to participate in the Goodwill Games, where she earned a silver medal on the balance beam.

In 2001 Pavlova won the junior women's nationals.

In 2002 she won the Russian National Championships.

In 2002, still too young to compete internationally as a senior, Pavlova won the Russian National Championships.

She earned four medals, including team, vault and all-around gold, at the Junior European Championships that year.

Pavlova competed at the 2003 World Championships during her first year as a senior gymnast, and the Russian team finished sixth.

Pavlova did not earn an individual medal; she had qualified for the individual all-around, vault and floor finals, but mistakes prevented her from placing among the top three.

In 2004, Pavlova competed in the European Championships team competition.

She fell from the uneven bars, which she was a favorite to win, and did not qualify for the all-around.

Later that year, Pavlova claimed the Russian national title and made the Russian Olympic team.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, Pavlova had her best performance to date.

The Russian team fought their way back onto the medal podium, finishing third behind Romania and the United States.

In the individual all-around, she placed fourth and missed the bronze medal by a fraction, 0.025, behind China's Zhang Nan.

Pavlova won an individual bronze medal on the vault during the event finals, narrowly missing silver, whilst a mistake in beam finals cost her a medal.

She finished fourth behind Romania's Alexandra Georgiana Eremia.

Her floor music at the Olympics was "Winter" by Bond.

Pavlova is one of the few Russian gymnasts from the 2004 Olympic team who chose to continue competing; she won silver all-around at the 2005 European Championships.

She also competed in the 2005 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, where she qualified to the all-around final, as well as the vault and beam apparatus finals.

The following year, Pavlova competed at the 2006 World Championships, where she won a bronze medal with the Russian team.

She once again qualified to the all-around, vault and beam finals.

Pavlova was named to the Russian Olympic team for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

On August 10, 2008, in the preliminary round, she performed her floor routine to "Exodus" by Maksim.

She qualified fifth for the all-around final and also made the finals on vault, beam and floor.

In the team final, Russia finished fourth; Romania won the bronze.

In the vault final, Pavlova scored 0 on her second vault because she started before the green light was lit. In the floor final, she was still unsettled from the vault competition and did not perform well.

Two days later, she finished fourth in the balance beam final, 0.050 behind China's Cheng Fei.

In November 2008, Pavlova tore two ligaments in her knee during her beam dismount at the DTB World Cup event in Stuttgart.

Surgery was required to reattach the ligaments.

Pavlova told a Russian sports website, "I hope, of course, that I'll be able to return to gymnastics, but I don't have full confidence in that yet."

Before her injury, Pavlova had placed third on vault in Stuttgart.

At the time of the injury, she was ranked third in the world on beam and vault.

In August 2009, Pavlova resumed training.

At the end of September, she began competing at the local level.

She participated in the All Russia Dinamo competition and won gold on the uneven bars and bronze on the balance beam.

After having competed at several local competitions, her first big meet was scheduled to be the 2009 Voronin Memorial.

Pavlova competed for Azerbaijan from 2013, winning silver at the 2014 European Championships on vault.

She was well known for her balletic style and clean technique.

Pavlova retired in 2015 at the age of 28.