Komsomolskaya Pravda. November 3, 1970. On the top step of the podium are such pretty, such happy girls - world champions in gymnastics: Lyuda Turischeva, Zina Voronina, Lyuba Burda, Olya Karaseva, Larisa Petrik, and Tamara Lazakovich - the USSR national team.
Another podium in Ljubljana, and another top spot for us! Lyudmila Turischeva is the all-around world champion. Next to her is Zinaida Voronina, the bronze medalist... That was last week. Now the gymnasts have returned home. We met with Larisa Latynina, head coach of the USSR women's gymnastics team, Merited Master of Sports, and multiple world and Olympic champion, to discuss the victory and the victors.
Q: Larisa Semyonovna, was such a big victory unexpected for you, both in the team competition and in the all-around?
A: We expected victory. Neither the coaches nor the gymnasts doubted that we would win as a team. As for the all-around...
Q: Karin Janz?
A: Yes, we didn't expect such a successful peformance from another gymnast from the GDR, Zuchold, but we considered Janz to be the most serious obstacle on the path to victory in the all-around...
Q: Who was suposed to compete with Karin Janz for the gold?
A: One of our three girls: Burda, Turischeva, or Voronina.
Q: Is there a pattern to the fact that Turischeva came first?
A: I think so! Turischeva is a very focused, very serious girl. Everything she does, she does thoroughly, giving it her all. That's how she studies at school, that's how she trains...
Q: How does she feel about the coach's instructions?
A: Vladislav Rastorotsky is an unquestionable authority for her. Lyuda trusts him completely and, as you can see, for good reason. At training camp, she readily accepts my comments, but implements them only after Vladislav Stepanovich approves them.
Q: How do you explain that Lyuba Burda was only fifth?
A: One could cite the unfortunate failure in her balance beam routine, but I don't think that's the main point. Two years ago, fifteen-year-old Burda was a unique gymnastics phenomenon. Stubborn and capricious, she easily achieved victory, conquering the sporting world with her prowess, youth, and the skill of her coach, Yuri Shtukman, who created a small miracle - gymnast Lyuba Burda.
Now Lyuda is seventeen, and she's unrecognizable. She's matured, her actions have acquired a dignity, her interactions a simplicity. She's considering every piece of advice from her coaches, developing her own perspective on gymnastics, and seeking her place in it. She has much to discover... Let's wait a little, and I'm sure we'll witness a new blossoming of her talent.
Q: Could Zina Voronina have expected a higher place?
A: When Zina returned to the sport after giving birth to Dimka, everyone was very wary of her. After all, she hadn't learned anything new, and her competitors had gotten ahead. But Zina, as you can see, competed equally with the world's strongest gymasts, and her bronze in Ljubljana is, without exaggeration, a huge victory. Zina has a lot of tenacity; she knows exactly what she wants and, as a rule, she's realistic about her own abilities. I think she's more upset by her husband Mikhail Voronin's failure. That's why she sometimes looked gloomy on TV.
Q: Things weren't going so well for Olya Karaseva's husband either, but the athlete literally flew onto the podium, blew her bangs off her forehead, and beamingly received her silver medal for the floor exercise.
A: She has such a happy personality. Olya knows how to rejoice in any victory. Third place is excellent, second is wonderful. First place - well, that's clear... Incidentally, Karaseva was preparing to win the gold medal in floor exercise. After all, she is the European champion and a two-time national champion in this event. Her routines are always technically sophisticated, filled with complex elements, but most importantly, she has a bright, spontaneous spirit. You'd think someone would be sorry about a championship they didn't achieve, but she's not - she's happy with the silver medal.
Olga is a Komsomol organizer. Her cheerfulness and optimism largely determine the team's microclimate. Olga takes her challenging role as Komsomol leader very seriously. It seemed to me, for example, that in response to the trust her friends placed in her, she has become much more focused, more demanding of herself, more attentive and tactful in her relationships with the girls and the coaches.
Q: Winning the floor exercise has become a tradition for your team. In Mexico City, Larisa Petrik won the gold medal for her floor routine, and Natasha Kuchinskaya took third place with a wonderful program.
A: Yes. It was an amazing performance! Everyone who saw it couldn't remain indifferent to the art of athleticism. The judges were captivated by her sincerity and purity... Although the acrobatic portion was, frankly, a failure.
Q: Has Natasha left sports competely?
A: I don't think so. I know she was planning to compete in the USSR Cup tournament, but she fell ill the day before.
Q: Why was the [team] captain sad?
A: Really? Of course, Petrik wanted to be closer to first place, and such a magnificent gymnast as Larisa certainly had every reason to count on a more solid harvest of medals, but her captain's duties required her to enter the arena second in the floor exercises, in the interests of the team, and this - due to the specifics of the judging - was a sure loss of two or three tenths of a point...
Q: At the 1970 World Championships, Tamara Lazakovich was a debutante for the national team, but she performed significantly worse than one might have expected...
A: This often happens. It's the first major competition. Lazakovich fell in Ljubljana, and in Mexico City, Burda and Turischeva, who were making their debut there, fell. It's understandable: the pressure is enormous.
Q: Could this setback have a detrimental effect on Lazakovich's growth?
A: No. Of course, Tamara is very persistent, very hardworking. Besides, she has an athletic character.
Q: We've talked about all our girls. And the brief descriptions you've given of them show us how unique and distinctive they all are. How do such diverse people form a team? How is team spirit expressed?
A: The girls' relationships at home, during training, at competitions, and so on, are like a tangled web. They're very young and require constant attention, care, and compassion. If one makes a mistake, everyone worries and, sadly, even becomes influenced by their own feelings, as happened with Lazakovich, who fell off the balance beam: everyone imitated her mistake. If someone succeeds in a routine, it means everyone is in a good mood, and everyone performs with enthusiasm. It's as if invisible threads are stretched between the girls. And sometimes even the coaches are unable to correct the information flowing along these threads.
Q: Was there a leader in the team like, let's say, the one you were in your time?
A: In my opinion, the time hasn't yet come for an undisputed leader to emerge. Our team is still very young. Petrik and Karaseva are both twenty-one, Turischeva is eighteen, Burda is seventeen, Lazakovich is sixteen. Our alternates, Olya Korbut and Rusiko Sukharilidze, are fifteen and sixteen, respectively. A little older is Zina Voronina - she'll soon be twenty-three. Each of these girls has every opportunity to become a leader. It all depends on how efficiently they use their opportunities.
Lyuda Turischeva's success in Ljubljana is a serious bid for team leadership. But for now, it's just a bid. She needs to win consistently and decisively...
Q: Was Lyudmila's current victory indisputable?
A: It was certainly well deserved.
Q: Well, what if Karin Janz hadn't fallen?
A: You see, I don't think it was entirely accidental. The element she tripped on was difficult and required extraordinary precision. East German coaches told us that Karin had prepared extensively for the championship and had overtrained somewhat. She began to lose precision in executing complex movements and pirouettes. During the USSR-East Germany match, she had exactly the same fall during the warm up.
All calculations show that Lyuda would have been first in any case.
Q: You've noticed that viewers are now watching women's gymnastics with greater interest and participation than men's. What's going on here?
A: Charm, I suppose. Women's gymnastics is very young right now. Spectators treat the girls, quite literally, like their own children. At the same time, they already have personalities, characters. Their optional routines are a reflection of themselves.
The fantastic complexity of the exercises, combined with lyricism, femininity, and humanity, the tears and smiles of the gymnasts, so natural and sincere, give the viewer happy moments of involvement in the mystery of movement.
Q: Doesn't the enormous physical strain affect their development? After all, many girls start competing in major competitions at the age of fourteen.
A: Those who attend school do well academically, although they are often absent for competitions and training camps. In my opinion, our girls are ahead of their peers in their development. They embrace athletic goals, responsibility for their actions, responsibility for their families, coaches, teammates and, ultimately, responsibility to their country - all of this contributes to early personality development.
Q:Can you name the main contenders for gold medals in Minsk at the 1971 European Championships, in Munich at the Olympic Games, and in Varna at the 1974 World Championships?
A: You know eight of them. They are the main and alternate athletes on our current team. Plus, perhaps, Elvira Saadi from Tashkent and Tanya Schegolkova from Riga. These are the ten who, in my opinion, will set the tone for our gymnastics in the coming years but...tomorrow, new names could emerge.
YU. ROST