Almudena Cid

Almudena Cid Tostado (born 15 June 1980 in Vitoria, País Vasco, Spain) is a former Spanish individual rhythmic gymnast who competed on the Spanish national team. She is the only rhythmic gymnast who has competed in four Olympic finals.

She became the first Spanish gymnast in history to have competed in two Olympic finals, Atlanta and Sydney, and she is the only rhythmic gymnast to make the finals at four consecutive Olympic Games: Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.

She also won the gold medal in the XVth Mediterranean Games Almería 2005 and she has been awarded many other national and international recognitions; among others, the gold medal in the Royal Order of Sports Merit in 2009, which is a Spanish civil Order of Merit intended to recognise yearly activities in the fields of sport and physical education.

In June 2001, the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique announced that Almudena's "body-apparatus relationship" with the ball was approved by the Rhythmic Gymnastics Technical Committee. As the code describes the Cid Tostado element:

Starting position: on one knee, leg forward, ball held with the foot. large roll of the ball on both legs. Originality 0.10 (§ 2.6.5.)

After a career lasting 21 years, she retired from rhythmic gymnastics on 23 August 2008. Currently, she is working as a sports commentator for rhythmic gymnastics competitions. Since 2014, she has also been writing Olympia, a children's collection of stories in which she talks about her sporting life.