Sovetsky Sport. November 6, 1973. At this championship, all of the men's coaches are talking about one thing - about the likely composition of the team for the upcoming 1974 world championships. But besides Nikolai Andrianov, I don't dare to name the gymnasts who will definitely get into the national team. Almost everyone behind Andrianov and Klimenko has performed unevenly this season. And now Nikolai during the team competition has broken away from his nearest pursurer by almost two points. His victory in the all-around championship is beyond doubt. He is a true all-arounder, without weaknesses, but the rest do not show excellent all-around training.
Of course, we can say that V. Marchenko, V. Boiko, V. Fogel, and V. Safronov have clearly improved this year. But why are they still significantly behind the leader? Don't they have strong enough routines? I wouldn't say that... Then what?
There is lack of virtuosity, brightness and, of course, stability.
You can't compete with the Japanese on an equal footing, you have to be better. In Munich, we were inferior to our main competitors in the exercises on the rings, pommel horse, and the high bar, and we looked better on the floor and on the vault. But there are some things you can't compromise on, otherwise there's no point even thinking about changing behavior. I'm not arguing - Soviet men's gymnastics has undergone very big shifts in recent years. However, the Japanese aren't standing still either. Every time before the biggest competitions, we secretly hope that this time everything is in order for our team, that the difficulty of the routines our guys are performing today is at its maximum, but then they step onto the platform and we see that either S. Kato or M. Tsukahara or E. Kenmotsu can suddenly throw out such a thing that we can't even believe it, we can't help but marvel.
How can we beat them in the end? Here at the Universiade in Moscow our four outstripped the Japanese team. But even these young Japanese gymnasts, whom we hardly knew, were distinguished by their ease of execution, some kind of special elegance which, by the way, some of the Soviet gymnasts did not have. The same V. Marchenko or V. Safronov can somehow sloppily approach or move away from the apparatus. But in gymnastics there are no trifles - a tiny sloppiness is noticed by the judges and creates a generally bad impression of the athlete. Everything is taken into account, everything is remembered, all the little things play into the score.
I think that young people should not hesitate to return to their childhood, to pay attention to choreographic exercises at the barre again. Yes, it takes up precious time, it's tiresome, but you can't do without it. That's right. Class, 'school' - oh, we need it now! My brother and pupil Vitya Klimenko is not doing so well with the purity of execution - his knees bend, his feet separate. Why? Unfortunately, we do not have time to finish everything to the end. Viktor cannot repeat the old routines year after year, he has to learn something new. So, now he is not participating in the national championship - he is training according to the plan, and is changing his exercises almost radically.
Maybe they are condemning him - he didn't help the Moscow team. But you have to admit, there are objective circumstances that prevent one of the leaders from competing. At the Munich Olympics, Viktor did the routines he performed in 1971. And we realized that we were a little behind the top level - then his injury did not allow us to move forward. That's why now we are working on more complicated elements. We have already prepared a triple twist on the floor, we are learning the 'moon salto' on the rings and the high bar, we are completely renewing the pommel routine, and we are mastering a super difficult vault. Only by mastering these elements can one count on success in Varna at the world championships.
Mikhail Yakovlevich Klimenko is the youngest of the coaches we are presenting to you. He is 31, and the most titled - Merited Coach of the USSR. He once showed promise as a gymnast: he was the champion of the 1959 Schoolchildren's Spartakiad, but left the platform early. Once he brought his younger brother by the hand to the gym, and although Viktor Klimenko's teachers were at first such a clever children's coach as Vladislav Brezhnev, and later such an outstanding specialist, one of the greatest gymnastics theorists, as the late Konstantin Karakashyants, Klimenko Senior always remained their co-partner in the upbringing of Klimenko Junior. He himself liked to experiment on the platform, and his brother loved it, and gymnastics was and still is a way of life for them. Because they were and are always having theoretical debates. Any time of the day or night.
It is not by chance that Mikhail Yakovlevich is convinced that a coach should not always subordinate an athlete in matters of technique. He must also obey. This democratic principle in theory and in practice is the basis of his relationship with his brother.
Klimenko Senior dreams of creating one day, together with Klimenko Junior, his own school, a brigade of like-minded people, specialists in apparatuses. And we were ashamed to ask him the necessary, alas, albeit sober and practical question about how to divide ranks and merits in such a team so that like-minded individuals wouldn't argue with each other. Klimenko's clear gaze read: how can one quarrel when one is doing a common cause?