page_title: Almudena Cid
section_title: Early life and training
hierarchical_section_title: Almudena Cid / Early life and training
caption_attribution_description: Español: La gimnasta española Almudena Cid en el Campeonato de Europa de Gimnasia Rítmica de Riesa en 2003.
context_page_description: Almudena Cid Tostado 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
context_section_description: She started practising rhythmic gymnastics at the age of 7. She first went to Arabatxo club and then to Beti Aurrera club in Vitoria, in which other important gymnasts such as Tania Lamarca and Estíbaliz Martínez were trained. Her coaches there were Aurora Fernández del Valle and Iratxe Aurrekoetxea. One of Almudena’s first sports references, as she named them because she doesn't like to call them idols, was the Russian gymnast Oxana Kostina.
  In May 1994, at the age of 13, she took part in the first international competition, in which she received three medals (one gold medal and two bronze medals). In November of the same year, she was asked by Emilia Boneva to start being part of the Spanish national individual team in Madrid, where she trained an average of 8 hours a day in the gym Gimnasio Moscardó.
  At the 1995 Spanish Individual Championships, Almudena took the lead at a national level for the first time. In June 1995 she got the 12th position at the Final European Cup in Telford (England).
caption: Cid in the 'Kiss n Cry Area' at the 2003 European Championships
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