Tamara Yerofeeva has often asked her mom why she had such a name. Her  mother was usually joking, but once she said : “I want you to be in life as a queen Tamara!”. That is why in every tournament of her long career Toma proved that she genuinely deserves the “queen” title. However, in life, off the carpet line, Tamara Yerofeeva never considered herself a star. Increadibly audacious on the floor, she is equally shy in life.

She did not think about any serious achievements in her childhood and only in the process of several year’s work Tamara turned into a wonderful swan out of an ugly duckling. Yerofeeva came to Albina Nikolayevna Deriugina in 1995. Thin, without any special gymnastics talents, that is who she was when she came to the gym. It is difficult to say what it was – intuition or work experience, but soon, the mother of rhythmic gymnastics, as many fans of this kind of sport call her, started to pay much attention to Tamara.

It is difficult to confuse her with any pupil of the “Deriugins school”. Elegance, exquisite execution of all difficult elements – these are the best ephitets that can be awarded to this Ukrainian gymnast. Tamara was fascinating the spectators with her inspiration, classically strict lines and purity of style. Having seen her pirouettes for the first time, you will never forget them. Almost all characters could be submitted to her : starting from the ballet “Giselle” to the victorious “Gladiator”

Bright compositions of Tamara Yerofeeva, created by Irina Deriugina specially to the Olympic 2000 season, opened the unique abilities of the gymnast.  Her expression and easyness of performance that led to the success in Sydney. 6^th place became the push to the continuation of the gymnastics’ career for the young gymnast. She managed to get over all the reefs and sharp stones that new elements of the code of points had laid before her.

Tamara has a rather condtradictory character, but being extremely hard working and persistant in reaching her goals, able to work extra hours she could concentrate in the most important moments and give out phenomenal masterpieces on the gymnastics range as it happened on the World Universiade and World Championship 2001. The last one brought Tamara the most desirable medal after Olympic one for every gymnast – “gold” of the world championship’s all-round competition.

 By the way, once Yerofeeva was competing in group event. For example, she was on the podium twice with the Ukrainian group in 1998 on World Championship in Spain. Perhaps, it was exactly these skills alowed Tamara to perform a routine with 5 ribbons on World Group Championship 2002 brilliantly and as a result, Ukrainian swans again brought “gold” home.  The best routines of Tamara were performed in individual competition on European Championship in Spain just that year. As a drop of dew, she was shining with the brightness of her composition and easily implemented the original ideas of her routines.  

A sad blow to Tamara was World Championship in Budapest, where she despite clean routines earned only 14^th place.  However, Tamara is called “a gladiator” not just because she was competing under the soundtrack from this movie, but also thanks to her incredible victory will and strength of spirit.

She didn’t break. On European Championship in Kiev she was competing again and made many of her fans happy. After the clubs routine, which was most likely her last individual routine in her career, Tamara could not avoid crying, and thankful spectators didn’t let her go from the carpet for a long-long time...