Sovetsky Sport. March 31, 1972. On Friday, in the capital of Ukraine, the individual and team championship of the the USSR in gymnastics will begin. Competing will be 154 athletes representing Dinamo, the Armed Forces, Spartak, Trud, Burevestnik, Lokomotiv, Labor Reserves, and Avangard.
The rules of the competition are similar to the Olympic ones. On the first day, the compulsory program is held, then the optional program. Based on the results of these two days, the champion team is determined. The sixteen female and male gymnasts with the best scores in the compulsory and optional programs will advance to the all-around final. The final result of the individual championship is made up of the compulsory plus the second, optional, program. Thus, the value of the compulsory program, the 'school' training of an athlete, is increased.
In the team championship, the favorites are the same. For the women, this is Dinamo, among which, out of seven members of the first Dinamo team, there are six members of the national team. The men's favorite is Army. Dinamo fielded two women's teams, and Army will field two men's teams. Their first and second teams have equal claim to the prize.
Extremely intense competition is expected in the individual championship. After all, the championship simultaneously serves as the first of three rounds of the selection of our future Olympic teams. Almost all of our strongest gymnasts will join the fight. The clause 'almost' is due to the fact that N. Dronova (she, however, is now healthy and has started training), R. Sikharulidze, and A. Trifonov will not be able to compete due to injuries. The rest are in order and in good shape.
In the women's competition, there will be an interesting dispute between the all-around world champion L. Turischeva and last year's national champion T. Lazakovich. Let me remind you that both of them carry the title of European champion. Undoubtedly, L. Burda, who has not competed on the big all-Union platform for a relatively long time, will also intervene in this dispute. We must hope for the successful performance of O. Karaseva and Z. Voronina - representatives of the now-older generation, although, as you yourself understand, they are quite young. In general, it's been a long time since we had such a large number of contenders for places in the national team. Their performances attract particularly strict and biased attention due to their recent loss to our main Olympic rivals - the GDR team.
Four-time national champion and former world champion M. Voronin and all-around European champion V. Klimenko continue to sort things out for the leadership of our men's gymnastics. The coming days will show whether N. Andrianov is ready to fight with them on equal terms, and whether S. Diomidov is still full of strength and energy.
The panel of judges, headed by international judge A. Mordovin, includes almost all the best Soviet gymnasts of the recent past. Suffice it to say that among the judges are. T. Manina, L. Ivanova, B. Shakhlin, A. Azaryan, N. Miligulo, P. Stolbov, and others.
Kiev has really missed great gymnastics. After all, it's been eight years that a competition of this rank has been held there, but Ukraine loves this sport and remembers the glorious names M. Gorokhovskaya, N. Bocharova, L. Latynina and P. Astakhova, A. Ibadulaev, V. Chukarin, and Yu. Titov. Therefore, the interest in the championship is great. The city is festively decorated, and at the train station and airport there are welcome posters and flags of the sports societies. The teams are patronized by the staff of enterprises and educational institutions of the capital of the republic.
S. TOKAREV