Sovetsky Sport. October 3, 1989. They were applauded by the sports world, they were admired, they were idolized. "Delightful stars of Soviet gymnastics" - this is how they were presented at exhibition performances in Belgium, England, the USA, and Australia. Even then, they gave us the enchanting art of the magical beauty of movement - Natalia Yurchenko, Olga Bicherova, Olga Mostepanova, Elena Shushunova. How recently all this happened, and our stars have already faded into the shadows. They had it all - flowers, smiles, glory.
The world of gymnastics obscured another world from us, the one that is protected by the concrete walls of the training gym, where tears, invisible to the audience, flow - from illness, from fatigue, from injuries. The honest and pure documentary film by Alexander Maryamov Are You Going to the Ball? told us about this other side of fame. Many realized that behind the bright tinsel of success, behind the other gold crowns, behind the victorious reports, there is something more hidden than tears. Tragic destinies are hidden, crippled by the cruel "milk" of sport.
No, all is not well in our domestic gymnastics; the entire system of training high-class athletes is not as streamlined as it seems. In any case, this is what the well-known specialist, senior coach of the Trade Union sports club, Merited Coach of the RSFSR Valentina Radionenko believes.
"My opinion is this: the whole sweatshop training system is becoming obsolete and requires rethinking and change. And we need to do this quickly, otherwise we will still lose a lot of talent."
Q: Are we just going to waste it? Is the situation really that alarming? What about the brilliant victories of our girls in Seoul? What about the success at the European Championships this year?
A: Right. But there are also defeats of the soul and heart. I sincerely wished for those girls who did not achieve good results not only for objective reasons but also for subjective ones. I am a categorical opponent of precisely the system that has developed in our youth team. It is that which grinds down a huge number of young talents and breaks fragile bodies. And the senior coach of the country's youth team Anatoly Kozeev, who has been leading it for nine years, is increasingly tightening his team leadership methods.
Q: You know, it's a surprise that, in your opinion, Kozeev is a "volunteerist," a supporter of team methods. Our girls from the national team have a lot of victories - at the Druzhba tournaments, at the Junior European Championships.
A: That's right, we're so used to blaming everything on medals. There are awards, which means everything is going great and there are no problems. But it's time to talk honestly about that monstrous "meat grinder" (sorry for the cruel comparison), about the alarming situation that has developed over the years in the youth team. Anatoly Kozeev controls the destinies of gymnasts and their coaches at his own discretion. A coach expresses his opinion, and Kozeev can angrily shout in front of everyone: "I will destroy you!" And then the girl of the unwanted coach disappears from the team, even if she shows good results.
For example, the path to the youth team was closed to students of coaches Nadezhda Maslennikova from Moscow, Yuri Kozyrev from Riga, and Lyudmila Pushkareva from Ivano-Frankovsk.
Q: Frankly, it's hard to believe this. After all, we are used to seeing piety in a senior coach. I have been, although not often, to the Round Lake base and I do not know of similar cases of rudeness.
A: But, unfortunately, this is true, and other coaches can confirm it. However, we are still talking about the very approach to the training of the gymnasts of the youth team. The immense, unjustified pursuit of difficulty at a young age, to the detriment of artistry and class performance, led to the fact that tens of the most talented girls were "eaten up" on the main sports platform.
Q: What do you mean, "eaten up"?
A: This, of course, is a representation because you journalists love comparisons. The gymnasts simply disappeared. You, of course, remember with what joyful trepidation we all waited for amazingly gifted gymnasts on the main stage - Tanya Kim and Regina Starodub from Kishinev, Armine Barutyan from Yerevan, Natasha Studenikina from Ivano-Frankovsk, Galina Shevela from Tolyatti, Elena Zabrodina from Kuibyshev. Believe me, they could become world-class stars! But no, their rendezvous with the senior platform did not take place. The merciless exploitation of their talent, the most stringent demands on the difficulty of their programs, the staggering number of performances abroad - all this broke them, just broke them. They were squeezed like lemons!
Oh, what gymnasts they were! Studenikina competed at the Druzhba tournament five times, Zabrodina was the all-around champion at the 1984 Junior European Championships, Kim basically traveled halfway around the world because the public liked her so much...
The youth team completely lacks such concepts as caring for the girls, mercy, patience, and kindness. It's a race, a terrible race - like a mad dance to the point of exhaustion, to the point of fainting, like in the film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Perhaps the increase in difficulty was somewhat justified when Nadia Comaneci showed up. Then everything - risk and adventurism - was thrown at the altar of our prestige. I hope you remember well the national championships, when gymnasts rushed headlong into double somersaults. Our hearts sank - we expected trouble every minute. And it came. What happened to Lena Mukhina was a natural consequence of the leap in difficulty.
Q: I completely agree with you here, Valentina Alexandrovna. You haven't named enough of the gymnasts who literally disappeared on their approach to the senior team. In general, in those not-so-distant times, victorious timpani were valued most of all and were placed even above human grief. The time has come to say that in the early 1980s, some leading athletes had their age changed in their foreign passports. At that time, gymnasts from the age of 15 were allowed to participate in the world championships, while our girls appeared at 14, and Olga Bicherova, for example, wasn't even 14 at the world championships. This was sanctioned by the then-leadership of the Gymnastics Directorate of the USSR Sports Committee. But why now, in hindsight, reproach those people who were ordered to win at any cost. We were all to blame: some made a deal with their consciences, others kept their mouths shut. I remember that journalist Stanislav Tokarev and I tried to tell the truth, because deception in sports in doubly immoral, but we were reproached for being unpatriotic. Such revealing material could not have appeared then.
A: Yes, we remember all this, we know it. I am sounding the alarm that our methods in gymnastics remain old. They continue to squeeze everything out of the girls. And again, in order to report on the successes at the Druzhba tournament of the young gymnasts from the socialist countries, at the continental junior championships, with bravura.
Lately, they have been talking excitedly about Sveta Ivanova from Mariupol. Kozeev took the capable girl - in 1983, when she was 9 years old! - for centralized training. Already at the age of 11, Ivanova was performing the most difficult elements. This was pure exploitation of her natural abilities, which accordingly led to injuries. Sveta's elbow was injured, it had not healed but she was sent to the 1988 Junior European Championships. Ivanova became the all-around champion. In February of this year, she sprained her Achilles tendon. It healed. But then it turned out that she still couldn't straighten her elbow. And now I don't know how her life will turn out, and not only in gymnastics. At the national championship in Donetsk, Sveta didn't even make it to the all-around final.
In general, in Donetsk we all watched the performances of those girls who had gone through many, many years of training on the youth team. What do they look like, our hopes? After all, they were given so many advances.
And what? After the team competition, Leningraders Irina Vyatina and Marina Korolkova found themselves in 16th and 21st places, Lyubov Stovbchataya from Odessa - in 25th, and her fellow countrywoman Irina Avteneva - in 36th. Lvov resident Yuliya Kut was injured and did not finish the competition. Ahead of these girls from "Kozeev's team" were those who either were not a part of the youth team or were there for a short time - Olesya Dudnik from Kirovograd, Natasha Kalinina from Kherson, Muscovite Tanya Groshkova, Riga resident Lena Sazonenkova, and Oksana Lymareva from Alma-Ata.
Do you think that Anatoly Pavlovich Kozeev was upset by this turn of events and grabbed his head? The girls attended training camps almost all year round. A lot of money is spent on them; 12 rubles a day are allocated for food alone. Here is the fiasco. No, Kozeev did not grab his head, because at that time he was at a junior competition in Japan. Didn't you find out that the leading specialist was not interested in watching the country's most important championships, especially since he already had been to Japan more than once? Why not reward the all-around and event winners of the youth games with this trip? But no, the girls competed in Tokyo whose results were very far from the all-around winners. This is true, by the way.
The main thing here is something else. The opinion of senior coach Kozeev is presented as the standard, as the ultimate truth. At these year-round gatherings, the spirit of creativity and goodwill have disappeared. "Do what I say!" - Anatoly Pavlovich's stern voice sounds.
Recently, TV commentator Evgeny Maiorov noted that our club hockey has become insipid, that there are no original teams. However, we have something similar with gymnastics: everyone learns almost the same elements, everyone must do the same number of pull-ups and push-ups. Continuous "tricks" with the rules in the form of bonuses or, conversely, deductions or two or three tenths of a points irritate coaches and gymnasts. Originality is not encouraged if it goes beyond Kozeev's "direction." Instant success is still valued. Gymnasts still somehow "skip" technical and choreographic training in order to perform a new trick, in order to simply surprise. The girls are ready to become champions at the youth level, but at least the grass won't grow there. The boys from the same team are "working for the future."
In general, it's high time to understand that the law of development of women's and men's gymnastics is the same. The direction of trickery cannot be chosen! If we beat our rivals by increasing the difficulty, then we should not do this at a young age. Otherwise, we will continue to lose talented athletes.
Yes, Svetlana Boginskaya was on the youth team. And she grew up to be a prima gymnast. But the whole paradox is that she stands out not because of her tricks but because of her tall stature, artistry, and beautiful lines. We have been waiting for such a gymnast - the gymnast of our dreams - for a long time. It's as if the times of the inimitable "artists" have returned: Larisa Petrik, Elvira Saadi, Nina Dronova, Olga Karaseva, Olga Mostepanova.
Q: So you're not against the youth team?
A: Of course not. I'm against creating some kind of cult out of this team. After all, not everything is right there. It seems to me that one can and should argue with Kozeev's training methods.
There are now creative gymnastics centers in the country: in Trade Unions (Krylatskoe), in Moscow Dinamo, in CSKA (Batumi), in Ukraine (Koncha-Zaspa). It's necessary to give these centers independence, space for initiatives, and equal rights. Coaches must be trusted and encouraged for good-quality work. Why not send to the Friendship tournament those teams (say, Trade Unions, Dinamo, Armed Forces) that win the country's youth championships? This would be a turning point in the development of our gymnastics, and a huge incentive for the coaches of these students!
You can't stick to dogmas and not change anything for years. This is the law of life and sport.
V. GOLUBEV