Thirty years after the glory of the Munich Olympics, the legendary gymnast is facing an investigation by the US secret service

The Munich Olympics, 1972. A tiny Russian gymnast strides on to the mat and approaches the asymmetric bars. She is only 17, but she possesses a confidence, a poise, far beyond her years. She pulls her diminutive frame up to the high bar, and there she stands, momentarily preparing herself. Then, in a leap of sheer courage, she dives backwards. Her body turns all the way round in a perfect circle before her little hands grasp the bar again.

Olga Korbut has just completed a back somersault dismount, the first time the move has been witnessed outside the Soviet Union. It will forever more be known as the ''Korbut flip''.

The beauty of her motion is certain to earn her a remarkable score, surely? And remarkable it is. But for the wrong reason. The audience jeers for a full 10 minutes on her behalf as the judges, for reasons best known to themselves, award her only 9.7 points. Still, there's consolation in the fact that it's a team event - and she's part of the Soviet team that wins the gold medal.

A few days later, Korbut brushes off her disappointment and prepares for the all-around finals, in which she's the favourite. The crowd is with her all the way. But it starts badly. She catches her foot on the mat. Still, she perseveres. Up to the high bar, carrying on with her routine. Everything's going swimmingly. It looks as if the medal is all but won. But then, as she comes out of her handstand, she catches her foot on the mat once again. Within seconds, her composure and her concentration have gone. The judges give her a disastrous 7.5. Olga Korbut is out of the running for the

individual all-around gold.

But it ain't over till it's over. The kid from Belarus qualifies for three of the four individual event finals. She bounces back on the bars and secures herself the silver medal. Then she goes on to even greater glory, winning gold in both the floor exercises and in the beam. More than medals, however, she captures the hearts of millions with her performance and ensures that Munich is remembered for more than the tragedy of the terrorist attack on the Olympic village.

But that was a long time ago. Almost 30 years later, sheriff's deputies in Gwinnett County, Georgia, are attempting to serve an eviction notice on the $240,000 home which Olga Korbut, now 46, shares with her husband, Norcross, in the small town near Atlanta.

The mock-Georgian house appears to be abandoned. Trashed almost. The deputies gain entry and discover that kitchen cabinets, doors, light fixtures, and electricity switches have been removed. A window has been broken. There's a lot of Olga's ghosts from the past lying around; old Olympic memorabilia and a 6ft oil painting of her as a teenager.

Then, in an upstairs office, they discover that the floor is littered with $100 bills. There's about $4000-worth, some of it scattered around, the rest stuffed in a plastic bag. Closer inspection reveals that the cash is counterfeit. Now the US secret service, on behalf of the Treasury, is investigating.

That happened in early December last year. But it came to light only this week after she was arrested by police and charged with shoplifting (pounds) 13 of groceries. According to the charge-sheet, she entered a local convenience store and tried to steal cheese, chocolate syrup, figs, seasoning mix, and a packet of Earl Grey tea. Korbut has denied the shoplifting charge, claiming that it was a simple misunderstanding. As for the funny money, the secret service is still investigating.

And so another heroic legend bites the dust. Fame, if not fortune, came early to the little girl with the pigtails and the beaming smile. Then it vanished. Now Korbut is a middle-aged woman weighed down by the kind of emotional baggage which runs with the territory. Still, her teenage legacy cannot be overstated. In terms of gymnastics, there was before Olga and then there was after Olga. Before Olga,

gymnasts were much bigger and

much older. They were also desperately serious, unsmiling, characters who checked their emotions in at the door of the arena.

She was the first to reveal a personality, the first to show any hint of joy or sadness. In that unfortunate occasion in Munich, when she scored just 7.5 points, she walked off to the side, buried her head in her hands, and cried her heart out. Millions watched her on TV - and immediately warmed to her.

The ironic thing was that Korbut

wasn't even supposed to be there in 1972. She was a last-minute substitute for an injured team-mate. But there she was, all 4ft 11ins and 84lbs of her. Bright, vibrant, and young, she changed the face of her chosen sport. Thanks to her example, thousands of gymnastic clubs were launched around the world.

And yet there was a darker side to her story. A side which was not revealed until much later. A couple of years ago, in an interview with a Russian newspaper, Korbut claimed that shortly before her Olympic debut, her long-term coach, Renald Knysh, had groomed her as a teenage concubine. He would ply her with drink and force her to have sex with him.

Knysh strenuously denied the allegation, but Korbut was adamant. ''He trained me for sex,'' she said. She also alleged that there were times when he hit her and that he tried to control every aspect of her young life.

She said once: ''I was a child with no experience of life and completely dependent on my trainer. I was 18 or 19. I wanted to go somewhere to meet boys. But Renald had such control over my life that this was impossible. He would continually talk to me about how important it was just to think gymnastics, gymnastics, gymnastics.''

There were also rumours that the teenage Korbut was persuaded to take drugs to stunt her physical development. She did not menstruate until she was 20 and she took up smoking - at the age of 10 - in order to stay thin.

Someone said that, by the time she parted company with Knysh, a notoriously hard taskmaster, she had the body of a 12-year-old, the face of a 30-year-old, and the eyes of a 70-year-old.

Certainly, she was completely devoted to her sport. That back somersault dismount which so impressed the crowd? It took five years and three head injuries to achieve. She also had to have a metal rod inserted in one arm, the result of another injury during practice.

Olga Korbut was born, the youngest of four sisters, in May 1955, in the town of Grodna. Her father was an engineer and her mother a cook. At the age of eight she became a pupil in a sports school which at the time was run by Knysh. After three years of intensive training, Knysh became her personal coach and immediately began to

develop a series of innovative and groundbreaking moves.

In 1967 she came to the attention of Larissa Latynina, the head coach of the Soviet Union's women's team. She was taken as a reserve to the 1970 World Championships. Then, two years later, came her triumph at Munich.

As a result of her success, she became an international celebrity, always in demand. Some have argued that it went to her head; that she went out of her way to seek financial reward. If true, then this might explain her

relative failure at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal; when she won just a single gold medal. With so much else going on in her life, perhaps she took her eye off the ball.

Korbut never again matched her Munich performance. Her relationship with Knysh broke down and she retired from competition in 1977. She eventually secured a teaching post at a sports school in Minsk. Then she married a Russian rock star, Leonid Bortkevich, and they had a son, Richard, now 22.

Though she has maintained that she was deeply affected by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 (to the extent that she used her fame to raise money in the west for the victims), some in her native Belarus still believe she let them down by emigrating to America too soon after the tragedy. Actually, she didn't move to the US until 1991, a full five years after Chernobyl.

She and her family first settled in New Jersey where, for a brief period, she coached gymnastics. However, she was forced to resign after her young

students complained about her tyrannical teaching methods. Korbut retaliated by accusing her American protegees of being lazy and spoiled.

These days the former Olympic champion is still active in gymnastics, giving coaching clinics all over America. She also delivers ''motivational'' courses for business executives.

Whether or not recent events confirm that Olga Korbut has hit the pain barrier in her personal life is a moot point. Certainly, the fact that a foreclosure notice has been served on her home suggests that she and her husband are facing financial difficulty.

As for the shoplifting charge, well, she claims that she mistakenly left her purse in her car and wheeled her shopping trolley to the store doors with the intention of returning to pay for the goods.

More serious by far is the report of counterfeit money being found in the house. She may or may not have an explanation for that. If she has, then the US secret service will be the first to know. Whatever the case, the girl who made that spectacular leap of courage at Munich all those years ago appears now to have experienced an equally spectacular fall from grace.

allan laing