Sovetsky Sport. October 29, 1974. The championships ended with the awarding of medals in the individual events. For the women, Lyudmila Turischeva won two gold medals (balance beam and floor exercise). Olga Korbut was first on the vault, and the GDR athlete Annelore Zinke won the uneven bars.
For the men, Shigeru Kasamatsu won floor exercise and vault, Eizo Kenmotsu won parallel bars, Hungarian athlete Zoltan Magyar won pommel horse, Nikolai Andrianov shared gold on rings with the Romanian Dan Grecu, and Eberhard Gienger of the FRG was first on the high bar. In total, Soviet athletes received 6 gold, 10 silver, and 5 bronze medals.
I'll start with the most pleasant events, the most fruitful ones, so to speak. However, we were a little worried, because Lyudmila Turischeva couldn't land exactly on vault - neither after the 'screw' nor after the Tsukahara. And Sikharulidze sat down her vault, although quite gracefully but not so much as to get a winning score. Korbut helped out, throwing into the battle a 'screw' after pushing off from the vault, which amazed both the judges and spectators. The smallest of the athletes, she again won the hearts of the public.
Turischeva almost lost her balance on the beam after two of her trademark somersaults - here she has not made a mistake for seven years. Rastorotsky blamed himself: "You know, I mentally repeat all of the movements along with her, I influence her, and then I decided to experiment, I got distracted, but then I switched on, and everything was in order." It is, it isn't, but Turischeva is Turischeva, and she gathered again, she concentrated again in a split second.
About the floor exercise final, one could say that it was the USSR championship, but Hellmann with her lovely routine could only finish in sixth.
Once again about Turischeva. She is, among other things, a brave tactician. She keeps her emotions tightly in check, knows when to give them free rein and when to hold back.
She is the same age as Kolya Andrianov but, really, he could learn a thing or two from her - his desire to 'cut in' sometimes gets the better of him. This desire led on Sunday to the fact that he simply gave away his gold medal on vault, so to speak. Having performed his first vault attempt (a piked front) brilliantly, with height and accuracy, and having received an excellent 9.75, he could have (and should have) gone for a simple and reliable full twist. But he rushed into an undertrained Tsukahara with a twist, and sat down. He did not listen to anyone's advice, for which he paid the price. It's not science, someday he must become not the second, but the first, in the world. This experience will come in handy - weapons get stronger in battle.
Zoltan Magyar shone, 'riding' the horse with the dashingness of a zealout Hungarian hussar. All that was missing was a fur-trimmed jacket and a saber, but he certainly had enough difficult maneuvers for two people.
The favorite on the high bar, Tsukahara, fell off, and the winner was the European champion Gienger, the same handsome man who has not only a European but Asian style of gymnastics.
S. TOKAREV