Gina Elena Gogean (born 9 September 1977)[3] is a retired artistic gymnast from Romania who competed internationally in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.

[4] Criticized for her lack of artistry and expression, Gogean nonetheless had nearly unmatched consistency, longevity, and efficiency that made her a backbone of the Romanian team in the 1990s.

Gogean and her mother have denied this, and her official birth year is still listed as 1977 or "unknown" in many sources.

[6] Gogean initially trained at CSS Focșani, near her home village, under the tutelage of Sergiu and Tatiana Popa.

She began to make a name for herself at the 1992 European Championships where she won the floor exercise gold, and finished second all-around and vault.

Though her teammate and close friend Lavinia Miloșovici was one of the stars of the Olympics, Gina nonetheless had established herself as a gymnast to watch for in the future.

[3][4] In a sport where athletes are constantly fighting the battle of time as well as their maturing bodies, Gina continued to be one of the top gymnasts in the world each year after the Olympics.

Gina suffered a fall in the qualifying rounds of this competition while attempting a back handspring-layout-back handspring combination on beam.

[5] Though Gina struggled in major all-around competition through 1995 and 1996, her gymnastics continued to improve and she won more individual event World titles.

Gina, however, had a strong performance during the all-around and won the silver medal behind Lilia Podkopayeva of Ukraine.

Traditional surgery would have involved at least a six-week wait to resume light training; she would have missed the Olympics.