Sovetsky Sport. June 4, 1983. Dear Editor! I would like to ask the coaches from the youth team a number of questions. For example: do we have any promising young gymnats? What new products are our future Olympians preparing?
G. Mulyakina and I. Khrumenkova, teachers, Ulan-Ude.
I am appealing through the editorial office to specialists in sports gymnastics. I heard that some famous athletes have left the platform. Is there a replacement for them? Which of the young gymnasts can claim a place in the main national team?
Z. Bykova, pensioner and labor veteran, Moscow.
Dear editors! At the spring gymnastics competitions of the Moscow News and Riga-83, I really liked the performances of Natasha Yurchenko, Albina Shishova, Olya Mostepanova, Tanya Frolova, and Alla Misnik. How quickly the difficulty of exercises in women's gymnastics increases! It would be interesting to know the opinion of qualified trainers - is it really possible to come up with even more difficult routines?
G. Ployachek, musician, Moscow.
We showed these and other letters from our readers to the coaches who are responsible for the state of affairs in the country's youth team, and asked them to express their opinion on the ways of developing women's gymnastics.
Every season, in reports from gymnastics competitions, we read consistently that young athletes, tournament debutantes, are demonstrating more and more complex exercises. Now, probably, no one doubts the fact that it is impossible to stop the growth of difficulty. This is a natural process.
We can say that work continues on increasing the difficulty of routines and searching for original, unusual elements. And this is not only in Soviet gymnastics, but also in world gymnastics. Therefore, we need to take into account current trends, and to keep our finger on the pulse of new trends.
What worries us, the youth team coaches, most of all? First of all, we must think about how to prolong the performances of gymnasts on the adult platform, how to maintain the skils of girls who move from the youth team to the main one. The reader will ask: why are you worried about those gymnasts who are leaving the youth team? But how can we not worry, if we are obliged to prepare future Olympians, and the high level of skill of mature gymnasts is also our common concern.
It's no secret that many young athletes, having shone on the youth platform, then disappeared from the specialists' field of view. The reasons for this are different: some cannot withstand the stress due to poor physical fitness; others, without correcting gaps in technique, cannot master new elements; and a third have not been able to overcome the psychological barrier.
New trends in gymnastics, a significant increase in difficulty - all this forced us to undertake a serious restructuring of work in the youth team and in the distant national team. The core, the basis of this restructuring, is to give girls a more in-depth gymnastics education. For this purpose, a wide comprehensive training program was developed, designed to last for many years.
Remember the last gymnastics competitions. For example, the Moscow News tournament. What interesting routines were shown by the girls from different teams! The gymnasts showed the strongest acrobatic skills on the mat, many performed a variety of acrobatics on the balance beam, and also performed breathtaking flights on the uneven bars. In the near future, girls will perform double piked somersaults, triple somersaults, modernized elements like a Tkachev, a Delchev, twisting somersaults on the balance beam, and so on.
It is this ever-increasing level of international gymnastics that forces us to place increased demands on the training of reserves. But to learn such difficult elements and combinations, of course, special physical athletic qualities are needed, special accuracy, power, and coordination.
So, as we have already said, programs for special physical training (SPT) and special technical training (STT) were developed. And so, at the 1981 USSR Youth Cup, and then at the 1982 All-Union Championship for Specialized Sports Schools, SPT competitions were held.
The analysis showed that this program for the development of physical qualities is quite accessible to two age groups of gymnasts: 10-12 years and 12-14 years. Unfortunately, many girls showed very poor results in these tests, which suggests that not everything is going well with their physical training. And therefore, the SPT program must be widely implemented locally.
The coaches and gymnasts liked the STT program. It includes routines that help improve and consolidate motor skills and finely feel the technique of performing complex elements. There are classes on the trampoline, and interesting elements on uneven bars, balance beam, and vaulting.
We are convinced that this entire comprehensive program will significantly improve the physical qualities of young gymnasts and improve their motor skills. Already now, members of the youth team and the Olympic reserve team are successfully mastering completely new routines. They will contain extremely difficult elements that have not yet been seen on the international stage. But we emphasize that showing an unusual trick (this is how puzzling, risky elements are usually described) is not an end in itself. Despite the continuous increase in the difficult of the exercises, coaches first of all pay attention to the harmony, integrity, and beauty of the composition. Let us also note that technical training exercises increase the safety of practicing our difficult sport. After all, mastering fine, harmonic technique, strengthening physical qualities, improving the culture of training - all this eliminates injuries and much more. The girls' natural sense of fear of difficult exercises disappears. And we are happy that the gymnasts are in a good mood during training.
If gymnastics lovers think that the wonderful victories of the women's team at the Oympics and world championships, as it were, authoritatively create a solid foundation for the national school, then they are mistaken. Unfortunately, there are not so many bright, original talents. But don't we have enough sports schools where other talents grow? No, children's and youth sports schools are constantly opening and gyms are being built, but the quality of gymnastics training is very poor. The coaches are in a hurry, they are in a hurry to see the fruits of their work, but with unbearable loads they themselves destroy the skills of their students. Coaching is the scourge of our business, and we need to fight it.
We do not feel any real impact from an important part of our sport - sports boarding schools. The girls from Frunze, Ashkhabad, Minsk, and Kharkov showed extremely poor preparation at the recent All-Union competitions among boarding schools. And only one gymnast from Leningrad competed! Despite assurances, no athletes from sports boarding school No. 9 in Moscow deigned to come to the competition. Excuse me, but how do we evaluate the work of the coaches?
We are waiting for new students of such famous coaches as V. Dmitriev (Vitebsk), V. Khomutov (Grodno), I. Mametyev (Leninsk-Kuznetsk), G. Korshunov (Leningrad), and V. Kuksa (Kiev). These mentors once trained Olympic champions of different years - Larisa Petrik, Tamara Lazakovich, Antonina Koshel, Maria Filatova, Elena Davydova, Stella Zakharova.
Unfortunately, our powerful gymnastics centers - the Spartak school in Voronezh and CSKA - are stalled.
Nevertheless, there are talented athletes in the youth team. Last season, very interesting gymnasts were included in the main team - Olga Mostepanova, Svetlana Murzunenko, Valentina Shkoda, Elena Shushunova, Elena Belkina, Vera Kolesnikova.
We think that the brighest gymnasts of the current youth team have a reason to be included in the main team: Irina Baraksanova (Tashkent, Armed Forces), Anzhela Schennikova (Izhevsk, Trade Union), Oksana Omelyanchik (Kiev, Spartak), Marina Kalinichenko (Frunze, Dinamo), Svetlana Shipulina (Leningrad, Spartak), Margarita Irshenko (Zhitomir, Burevestnik), Armine Barutyan (Yerevan, Armed Forces), Olga Boldyreva (Roston-on-Don, Armed Forces). These athletes are preparing for the Druzhba friendship tournament of gymnasts of the socialist countries, which will be held in Hungary in August before the world championships.
We are pleased with the leadership of the coaches who are involved in working in the youth team. V. Shevchuk from Krasnoyarsk trained the Olympic champion Elena Naimushina, and now he has an interesting gymnast Tanya Godenko; G. Sazonova from Izhevsk once trained the famous athlete Marina Ostanina, and now her student Anzhela Schennikova is showing promise. The Lavrov couple from Rostov-on-Don nurtured the Olympic champion Svetlana Grozdova and now the team has the capable Olga Boldyreva; L. Miromanova from Minsk (she previously had a strong gymnast Lyudmila Savina) again came to the team with the talented Sveta Boginskaya. Young coaches G. Meltonyan from Yerevan, G. Vorobyova from Chelyabinsk, and V. Yakovlev from Fergana are also working fruitfully.
The search for bright talent continues. In general, the reserve for the established team is now growing quite well. We could call those gymnasts who train with a long-term perspective. But we hold off for now. Let them express themselves with excellent performances on the international stage.
A. KOZEEV, head coach of the USSR youth team
K. KRUTIEV, cocah of Olympic reserves of the USSR Sports Committee