24. Dezember 2008  
Moscow, Russia  
Artistic Gymnastics

... Personalities:Russia engages Ukrainian star coach Ostapenko ...

Oleg Ostapenko

The Russian Gymnastics Federation announced last week that the former head coach of Ukraine and Brazil, Oleg OSTAPENKO, will be the new junior women's coach for Russia. He will take this new responsibility under the lead of the new Russian head  Alexander Alexandrov, who returned to Russia last month after working for 15 years in Texas.
Ostapenko - who had been working as the Brazilian head coach since 2001 - returned to Ukraine in November 2008, initially with the intention of starting work in January with the Ukrainian women's national team,  ... but now this surprising change of plans has been announced... 

Nadeshda OSTAPENKO, coaching Daiane dos Santos

Ostapenko and his wife, Nadeshda Ostapenko, moved to Brazil in 2001. They worked at the national training center in Curitiba, and helped oversee a strong improvement in the Brazilian women's team, which has won three world medals through Daiane dos Santos (2001), Daniele Hypolito (2003) and Jade Barbosa (2007).
The Brazilian women finished eighth at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, and left without any medals.

Ostapenko was the personal coach of the double Olympic champion Tatiana Lysenko (Barcelona 1992), Natalia Kalinina (Good Will Games Champion) and Viktoria Karpenko (all-around vice-world champion, Tianjin 1999). 
Also 1996 Olympic champion Lilia Podkopayeva worked under the guidance of Ostapenko.
* Russian Gym Fed & Russian/Ukrainian press