Unless I’m very much mistaken, which is always a possibility, the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing mark the first time that Russia/the Unified Team/the Soviet Union have competed in women’s gymnastics and not won a single medal, either in the team event or in the individual events.

That’s amazing to me.

They started competing in women’s gymnastics in 1952, which was the first year that women’s individual events and the individual all-around were contested. The previous two Olympiads (1948 in London, 1936 in Berlin) had women’s team events only, and prior to that only men competed in gymnastics.