Melita Ruhn

Melita Ruhn (later Fleischer, born 19 April 1965) is a retired Romanian artistic gymnast who represented Romania at the 1980 Summer Olympics.[2] She belongs to the German minority in Romania. She won three Olympic medals (team, vault, uneven bars) for Romania and scored a perfect ten for the vault optionals in the team competition of the 1980 Olympic Games.[3] In 1979 she was a member of the first world gold medal winning team of Romania. She is also an all around and floor world bronze medalist.

Melita Ruhn
Ruhn in 1980
Personal information
Country represented Romania
Born (1965-04-19) 19 April 1965
Sibiu, Romania
Height156 cm (5 ft 1 in)
DisciplineWomen's artistic gymnastics
Years on national team1979–82 (ROM)
Head coach(es)Béla Károlyi
Assistant coach(es)Marta Károlyi
Former coach(es)Ana Crihan, Adrian Goreac[1]
ChoreographerGeza Poszar
Retired1982
Medal record
Olympic Games
1980 Moscow Team competition
1980 Moscow Vault
1980 Moscow Uneven bars
World Championships
1979 Fort Worth Team competition
1979 Fort Worth All around
1979 Fort Worth Floor

Career

Ruhn took up gymnastics aged seven at Sport School Club Sibiu coached by Ana Crihan and Adrian Goreac. Later she trained with the national team in Deva under coach Béla Károlyi.[1] Her first major international competition was the 1979 European Championships in Copenhagen where she placed fifth in the all-around final event.[4]

Together with Nadia Comăneci, Rodica Dunca, Emilia Eberle, Dumitriţa Turner and Marilena Vlădărău, Ruhn was a member of the gold-winning team at the 1979 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.[3] This was the first time that Romania won the team event at the world championships and the second time the Soviet team had not won the world or the Olympic title since 1952.[5] Melita did all the four events and contributed with a difficult and risky routine on the uneven bars.[5] Individually she won the bronze medals in the all around and in the floor event and placed seventh on vault and eighth on balance beam.[6]

In 1980 she was a member of the silver-winning Romanian team at the 1980 Olympic Games.[3] She revealed for a newspaper that just before the Moscow Olympics she fractured her ankle. The ankle was put in a cast, and coach Károlyi took it off before the vault event. She scored a 10 and the cast was placed back on her ankle.[7] Besides winning silver with the team she won the bronze medal on vault and on uneven bars. The bronze on the uneven bars was a tie with Steffi Kräker and Maria Filatova.

Post retirement

Ruhn retired from competitive gymnastics in 1982, when she was 17. She finished high school in her native Sibiu and left for Bucharest in 1984. She went to the sports university there, while also competing for her home club of CSS Sibiu for a short period. After she graduated from college, she had a boyfriend, who emigrated to Germany with his family in 1988. They wanted to get married but the Romanian communist government only gave them their approval two years later, so she only managed to leave Romania in 1990. In Germany she stayed for the first three months in a refugee camp near Nürnberg sharing the same room with six people. Then she was allowed to move in together with her boyfriend. The former gymnast started working as a custodian.[7]

References
  1. Melita Ruhn. Romanian Olympic Committee
  2. Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Melita Ruhn". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 18 April 2020. Retrieved 4 October 2008.
  3. "1980 Olympics, Women's Team"". "Gymn-Forum. 26 June 1999.
  4. "1979 European Championships Women's All Around "". "Gymn Forum. 24 October 1997.
  5. "The Times" Coming of age in Fort Worth, 24 December 1979
  6. "1979 World Championships, Women's Final Events"". "Gymn-Forum. 2 February 2004.
  7. ""Gymnastics Greats: Melita Ruhn"". Gymnasticgreats.com.
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