Lavinia Agache

Lavinia Agache
Agache in the 1980s
Personal information
Full name	Lavinia Agache
Country represented	Romania
Born	(1968-02-11) 11 February 1968 (age 56) Căiuți, Romania[1]
Height	148 cm (4 ft 10 in)
Discipline	Women's artistic gymnastics
Level	Senior international
Years on national team	1980–85 (ROM)
Gym	Deva National Training Center
Former coach(es)	Octavian Bellu, Maria Cosma, Adrian Goreac, Béla Károlyi, Marta Károlyi[2]
Medal record Olympic Games 1984 Los Angeles Team 1984 Los Angeles Vault World Championships 1983 Budapest Team 1983 Budapest Vault 1983 Budapest Uneven bars 1983 Budapest Balance beam European Championships 1983 Gothenburg Balance beam 1983 Gothenburg All-around 1983 Gothenburg Uneven bars 1983 Gothenburg Vault World Cup Final 1982 Zagreb Floor Exercise 1982 Zagreb All-Around

Lavinia Agache (later Carney; born 11 February 1968) is a retired Romanian artistic gymnast. She won 10 medals at major international events, including a team gold medal at the 1984 Olympics and three silver medals at the 1983 World Championships (team, vault and uneven bars).^[1] She is also the 1983 European champion on balance beam.

Agache took up gymnastics aged seven with Mihai Agoston and Maria Cosma. She was then coached by Béla and Márta Károlyi before their defection to the United States, and later by Octavian Bellu, Adrian Goreac and Maria Cosma. She won the all-around bronze at the 1980 Junior European Championships^[3] and the 1981 International Japan Junior Invitational.

In 1981, thirteen year old Agache was entered to compete in the International Gymnastics Classic in Los Angeles under the name Ekaterina Szabo.^[4][5] Szabo was another gymnast on the Romanian team. The reason for the deception is unclear because Agache could have competed under her own name if Romanian gymnastics officials had simply entered her into the competition.^[5] Both Agache and Szabo were well-known to international gymnastics officials and judges, which made the attempt to pass off Agache as Szabo even more baffling.^[6] She tied Julianne McNamara for second place, but her scores were invalidated after the competition.^[7][8] Three years later, Agache and Szabo were both on the gold medal winning Romanian team at the 1984 Olympics.

Agache won three individual medals at the 1983 World Championships (silver on vault and uneven bars; bronze on beam) and a team silver medal, and four medals at the 1983 European Championships (gold on beam, silver in the all-around and on uneven bars, and bronze on vault). At the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, in addition to the team gold medal, she won the bronze medal on vault. This was a disappointing medal toll for Agache, however, as she had the opportunity to win medals on every event and in the all-around after winning the compulsory round of team competition, but suffered falls on three of the four events during the optional rounds (bars, beam, and floor). She semi-retired in 1984 after a knee injury, but returned in 1991 to compete in the first World Professional Championships. After that she participated in numerous gymnastics shows in the United States, and eventually married and became a gymnastics coach there. Lavinia is married to Manuel Ramos jr., an ENT doctor, and has four nieces. One of her nieces was a competitive gymnast who later switched to diving.^[1][2]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lavinia Agache.

• Lavinia Agache at the International Gymnastics Federation