Meet the 44-year-old gymnast who has eye on booking place at eighth Olympics by qualifying at World Championships

Gymnastics is often thought of as a sport for talented teenagers. But, at 44 and competing in the World Championships in Stuttgart this week, Uzbekistans Oksana Chusovitina has been working on changing the parameters of her sport for the best part of three decades. As the US gymnast, Shawn Johnson, famously put it: No one even knows how old she is any more, because it seems like shes been to the last gazillion Olympics.

Actually, she has been to seven Olympic Games, the only gymnast in history to do so, and with an eye on her eighth if she can qualify for Tokyo this weekend. Her winning vault routine from the World Challenge Cup in Paris last month showed that she is still competing with the best in the world.

Following that win in Paris, a video of her competing in 1994 went viral with the original commentary: Oksana Chusovitina, 19 years old, you dont see many gymnasts her age. Most of them are in and out of the sport by 17 or 18. Twenty-five years later, having become a mother, she is still going strong. It has not been an easy journey. Chusovitina began her career with the Soviet national team in the 1980s, practising on rudimentary equipment.

As the rules of the sport changed, the apparatus changed, and yet Chusovitina continued to compete at the highest level, sharing the podium with gymnasts younger than her own son.

Her personal life has been challenging. From an Orthodox Christian family, she faced opposition when she decided to marry Bakhodir Kurbanov, a Greco-Roman wrestler and a Muslim. Together they had a son, Alisher, who was diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of three. Without adequate medical care available in her native Uzbekistan, Chusovitina moved to Germany. The gymnastics community helped raise funds for his treatment. Chusovitina kept competing this time for Germany dependent on prize money to keep her son alive. If I dont compete then my son wont live, its as simple as that, she said.

She contemplated retiring several times. After attempting the Produnova at the Rio Olympic Games a handspring double front salto vault, commonly dubbed the vault of death which Simone Biles famously refused to attempt, saying: Im not trying to die she finished a disappointing seventh.

After the final, I kept thinking about what happened for a long time, she said. Should I continue or not? But the next morning, I woke up and realised that I would prepare for my next Olympics, I would go for my dream.

I competed at seven Olympic Games. I won a gold medal for the Soviet Union, I won a [silver] medal for the country that helped me Germany. But Ive never won a medal for Uzbekistan. Thats my dream an Olympic medal for Uzbekistan. When I was thinking after Rio whether to retire or not, I realised that I still can, I have the energy. I thought that if I dont try again, I will regret it for the rest of my life. In 2013, she switched to compete for Uzbekistan again to give it another go.

Chusovitina was not the first gymnast to compete in her sport as a mother.

Larisa Latynina won five gold medals at the 1958 World Championships for the Soviet Union while pregnant but in the modern era of gymnastics mothers are rarer than ever due to the increased difficulty of the sport and the demands it places on the body. Last year two new mothers, the Pole Marta Pihan-Kulesza and Aliya Mustafina, of Russia, came back to competition, citing Chusovitina as the example to follow.

Gymnasts who stay in the sport for a long time often reduce the number of apparatus they compete on. Chusovitina openly says she does not like the uneven bars, despite having two elements named after her in this event.

For some reason, Im always very nervous on bars, she said. And as a result, I make mistakes. I guess thats what scares me. But training on the vault alone bores her, so she trains all four apparatus, despite only competing in the all-around competition for Olympic qualification.

Chusovitina says the secret of her longevity is being able to live a full life alongside her gymnastics career. I am doing everything Im interested in while competing. Im being invited to gym openings, I present awards to children, I give masterclasses, I do community outreach, Im not just at the gym all the time.

Asked what her future holds, beyond competing, she said: I definitely wont become a politician, thats not for me. I want to develop childrens sports in Uzbekistan, specifically gymnastics, which, in my opinion, is the start for every other sport. Its important for me to leave a legacy behind.