Almudena Cid Tostado
Encyclopedia
Almudena Cid Tostado is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
) is an Individual Rhythmic Gymnast
Rhythmic gymnastics
Rhythmic gymnastics is a sport in which individuals or teams of competitors manipulate one or two pieces of apparatus: rope, clubs, hoop, ball, ribbon and Free . An individual athlete only manipulates 1 apparatus at a time...
. She is the oldest currently competing elite rhythmic gymnast. Almudena lives in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
. Almudena holds a modelling contract with Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
and she has modelled for an underwear store, Love Store. She speaks Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Almudena is one of the only Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
an gymnasts able to seriously compete against gymnasts from Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
.
Almudena started rhythmic gymnastics at age 6, her mother originally wanted her daughter to do ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
but, after her family commented on her flexibility she enrolled the young Almudena in rhythmic gymnastics. She has been a member of the Spanish National Team since November 1994. She became the first Spanish gymnast in history competing in two olympic finals, Atlanta and Sydney, and she is also the only rhythmic gymnast to make the finals at four consecutive Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
- Atlanta 1996
1996 Summer Olympics
The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....
, Sydney 2000
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
, Athens 2004
2004 Summer Olympics
The 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
& Beijing 2008
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
. http://www.ukraine-rg.com/ec/ec_eng/preview.htm
In June 2001 the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique
The Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique or International Federation of Gymnastics is the governing body of competitive gymnastics. Its headquarters is in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was founded on July 23, 1881 in Liège, Belgium, making it the oldest international sport organisation...
announced that Almudena's "body-apparatus relationship" with ball was approved by the Rhythmic Gymnastics Technical Committee. As the code describes the cid tostado element:
Starting position: on one knee, leg forward, ball held with the foot. large roll of the ball on both legs. Originality 0.10 (§ 2.6.5.)
At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics her final position was 9th, a total score of 38.515 (Rope 9.700, Clubs 9.683, Ball 9.566, Ribbon 9.566) and again at the 2000 Sydney Olympics she finished in 9th, her total score 38.907 (Rope 9.750, Hoop 9.725, Ball 9.691, Ribbon 9.741). In Athens she qualified for the finals in 9th, In the finals she was placed 8th, her best ever placing at an olympics, with a total of 98.450 (Ribbon 23.425, Clubs 24.900, Ball 25.000, Hoop 25.125). She competed in the individual all-around in the 2008 Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
in Beijing. She was 10th in the qualifying round and eighth in the final round with a total score of 68.100 (Rope: 17.000, Hoop: 17.000, Clubs: 17.150, Ribbon: 16.950).