Aliya Mustafina

Mustafina was born in Yegoryevsk, Russia, on 30 September 1994. Her father, Farhat Mustafin, a Volga Tatar, was a bronze medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1976 Summer Olympics, and her mother, Yelena Mustafina (née Kuznetsova), an ethnic Russian, is a physics teacher. Her younger sister, Nailya, is a former member of Russia's junior national gymnastics team.

In October, she competed at the 2010 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam and made history by qualifying for the all-around final and all four event finals—the first gymnast to do so since Shannon Miller and Svetlana Khorkina in 1996. She contributed an all-around score of 60.932 toward the Russian team's first-place finish and won the individual all-around with a score of 61.032. In event finals, she placed second on vault, scoring 15.066; second on uneven bars, scoring 15.600; seventh on balance beam, scoring 13.766 after a fall; and second on floor, scoring 14.766. She left Rotterdam with five medals, more than any other artistic gymnast, male or female. Andy Thornton wrote for Universal Sports:

Mustafina's first major international competition was the International Gymnix in Montreal in March 2007. She placed second in the all-around with a score of 58.825. The following month, she competed at the Stella Zakharova Cup in Kyiv and placed second in the all-around with a score of 55.150.

In September 2007, Mustafina competed at the Japan Junior International in Yokohama. She placed second in the all-around with a score of 59.800 and second in all four event finals, scoring 14.750 on vault, 15.250 on uneven bars, 15.450 on balance beam, and 14.100 on floor exercise.

At the 2008 European Women's Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Clermont-Ferrand, France, Mustafina helped the Russian junior team finish in first place and won the silver medal in the individual all-around with a score of 60.300. In event finals, she placed fourth on uneven bars, scoring 14.475, and fourth on floor, scoring 14.375.

On 7 August 2012, President Rustam Minnikhanov of Tatarstan congratulated Mustafina on her Olympic success. On 15 August, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded Mustafina the Order of Friendship at a special ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow. She was one of 33 Russian athletes to receive the award.

At the 2013 Russian national championships, Mustafina successfully defended her all-around title with a score of 59.850, earning a 15.450 on beam, 15.500 on bars, 13.600 on floor, and 15.300 on vault. These scores qualified her to the balance beam and uneven bars finals in first place, and to the floor exercise final in third place, but she withdrew from all but the bars final to protect her knee. She received a silver medal with the Moscow Central team and finished third in the uneven bars final, behind Anastasia Grishina (first) and Tatiana Nabieva (second).

At the 2013 European Championships in Moscow, she fell twice off the balance beam in qualifications and entered the all-around final in fourth place, with a score of 56.057. In the final, she scored 15.033 on vault, 15.133 on uneven bars, 14.400 on balance beam, and 14.466 on floor, winning the all-around title—her first individual European title—with a total of 59.032. The next day, she won the uneven bars final with a score of 15.300. She also qualified to the floor exercise final in third place, but withdrew and gave her spot to Grishina, who had been left out of the final due to the limit of two gymnasts per country.

At the Stuttgart World Cup in late 2014, Mustafina fell on uneven bars and balance beam and made several errors on floor exercise, causing her to finish fifth after being in second place in the first rotation. In December, after competing for two seasons without a coach, she began working with Sergei Starkin, who coached world champion Denis Ablyazin.

Mustafina began dating Russian bobsledder Alexey Zaitsev in autumn 2015. They met at a hospital where both were recovering from sports injuries. They married on 3 November 2016 in his hometown of Krasnodar.

At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Mustafina qualified to the all-around final with a total of 58.098, despite a fall on the balance beam. She also qualified in second place to the uneven bars final with a score of 15.833, and scored 15.166 on vault and 14.066 on floor. Russia qualified to the team final in third place, behind the United States and China.

Mustafina returned to training in 2017 after the birth of her daughter, Alisa, with the hope of returning to competition for the 2018 European Championships and eventually the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

In January 2017, it was reported that Mustafina was pregnant and that the baby was due in July. Mustafina gave birth to her daughter, Alisa, on 9 June 2017. She was reported to have divorced her husband in April 2018.