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Six months later, however, she blew out her left ACL at the European championships, putting her chances of simply competing in London in doubt.
"Sometimes I did," Mustafina said when someone asked if she ever considered quitting. "But these urges left me quickly."
She threw herself into her rehab, coming back so quickly she actually tried to convince her coach she could compete at the world championships last fall.
But there were only glimpses of her old self, and she was downright dismal at this year's Europeans.
"I did not believe I could do it," she acknowledged. "I was nowhere near in the shape I am now."
On this night, however, she was as brilliant as she's ever been.
Mustafina's uneven bars routine is packed with so many difficult skills it leaves her gasping for air by the time she's finished. But she makes them look easy, flipping and floating from one bar to another. Her execution is exquisite, her toes perfectly pointed, her legs razor straight.
When she landed, she threw up her hands in triumph and turned on a megawatt smile. When her score of 16.133 flashed, coach Evgeny Grebenkin picked her up in a bear hug, and chants of "ROSS-EE-YAH!" (Russia) rang out.
She now has a complete set of medals, following her silver from the team competition and bronze from the all-around.
"I am very, very happy I've won gold," Mustafina said. "Every medal represents its own thing."
Tweddle might have given Mustafina a real run for the gold had she not landed low on her dismount, needing to take two steps back to steady herself. But after her disappointment four years ago, when she finished a mere 25-hundredths of a point from the bronze, any medal was as good as gold.
"I saw myself in third and I thought: 'Please don't be fourth again,'" she said. "I just can't put into words what it means to me."
The British have become a surprise force in gymnastics -- they won four medals at these games -- and it was Tweddle who led the way. Her bronze at the 2003 world championships was the first world medal for a British woman, and she won Britain's first world title, on uneven bars, three years later. She has since added two more world titles, one on floor exercise in 2009 and another on bars in 2010.
"It's the best feeling in the world," Tweddle said after securing her bronze. "It's the one medal that was missing from my collection and I've always said I don't care what color it is."
[Associated
Press;
AP Sports Writer Will Graves contributed to this report.
Follow Nancy Armour at http://twitter.com/nrarmour.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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