Gymnastics coaches

Once the little girl with the bunches and the sunshine smile stunned the world with gymnastics that had simply never been seen before. Then she revealed the hideous hardship of her training and alleged that her coach had raped her. Now, after the pain and the achievement, comes the humiliation. Olga Korbut, the self-styled Most Famous Gymnast Ever, winner of four Olympic Golds, who at 17 and 4'11" captivated hundreds of millions of people as they watched her backflip her way into history, charged with shoplifting $19 (£13) worth of groceries.

Korbut, 46, was arrested not far from her mock-Georgian mansion home in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday evening. According to the police charge-sheet the gymnast had tried to steal cheese, chocolate syrup, figs, seasoning mix and a packet of Earl Grey tea from a Publix convenience store in the small town of Norcross. Korbut denies the charges and says that she is guilty only of a 'misunderstanding'. According to her lawyer, Korbut 'confident that once all the facts are brought out, the charges will be dismissed'.

Fans of the sports star were shocked by her arrest and have bombarded websites devoted to her life and achievements with supportive emails. Since taking three golds in the 1972 Munich Olympics and a fourth four years later Korbut's life has been marred by a series of controversies. She has made enemies who will be swift on the slightest claim, however unfair, of wrongdoing.

Many in her homeland of Belarus felt she betrayed her country by moving - with her famous musician husband and son - to America soon after the Chernobyl disaster. Korbut's fundraising efforts for the victims failed to mute critics.

On arrival in America she started coaching gymnastics in New Jersey but resigned when youngsters complained about her tyrannical methods. She subsequently called American children lazy and spoilt.

But Korbut had learnt in a hard school. Her recent revelations about her early life have shocked many. She was idolised when, in a few short days in the summer of 1972, the tiny 17-year-old from Grodno, the youngest of four daughters a single-room apartment with their parents, produced spellbinding performances that changed the face of gymnastics.

Few realised there was a darker side to the story. Eighteen months ago, Korbut told a Russian newspaper that her coach, Renald Knysh, had plied her with cognac and then forced her to have sex with him shortly before the Olympics. She said Knysh - who denies all his former charge's allegations - and the other Soviet coaches saw their pupils not just as potential gymnasts but as future concubines. 'He trained me for sex,' she said and also alleged that he struck her and sought complete control of her life.

Knysh recently attacked Korbut, calling her 'very lazy, very capricious'. Korbut responded by calling her former coach 'a loner, a despot, a weirdo'.

She has also hinted that she was forced to take drugs to stop her body developing. She did not menstruate until she was 20 and smoked heavily to stay thin. 'I was always writing down what I could eat. I even counted how many sips of water I took,' she has said. She enrolled in a sport school at the age of 10 and sometimes trained 20 hours a day. Her famous backwards somersault on the asymmetric bars took five years and three head injuries to perfect. Another injury resulted in a metal rod being inserted arm.