Sovetsky Sport. August 28, 1984. When the gymnasts competed for medals in the all-around competition at the Winter Stadium in the Czechoslovakian town of Olomouc, a Moscow schoolgirl surprised not only the spectators but also the discerning specialists. In the final of a competition of such a high rank, the winner received four 10s at once! Olga Mostepanova has convincingly proven that she is now the best gymnast in the world. She got 10 points for her vault, her uneven bars performance, her interesting routine on the balance beam, and her perfect execution of the floor exercise!
At the press conference, Olga said:
"Success, of course, makes me happy. I must admit, I'm happy. But I know that I still have reserves. You have to work hard. I think that I need to increase the difficulty of my vault and my performance on the balance beam."
You can see that the champion, having reached the maximum in scoring, is not resting on her laurels.
The coach of the USSR wonmen's national team, Andrei Radionenko, answering questions from the press, said that he was confident in the success of the Soviet gymnastics school. If Mostepanova had made a mistake (fortunately, this did not happen), Natasha Yurchenko or Elena Shushunova would have immediately come to the fore, and the others showed themselves great here.
While naming the names of our female athletes, the team's head coach looked at the competition report he had just received. In it was printed: H. Ricna from Czechoslovakia ended up in second place. She had 79.425 points. The very experienced M. Gnauck from the GDR and our E. Shushunova finished the competition with the same score. Next were A. Drevjana and N. Yurchenko - both with 79.1.
Maybe someone will think that Yurchenko, the all-around world champion, performed worse than expected. Yes, the technical results speak about this. But don't forget that Natasha did not train for a very long time after a severe injury. She had minimal competition practice. And here, in Olomouc, the Rostovite performed interestingly and beautifully. She had a setback, but the potential of this gymnast's skill is far from exhausted.
On Saturday, medals were awarded in the individual events. Dmitry Bilozerchev (PH, RG, PH) and Olga Mostepanova (VT, BB, FX) each won three gold medals. Maxi Gnauck (UB and FX) won two top awards. Other winners were Roland Bruckner (FX) and Silvio Kroll (VT), both from the GDR team, Vladimir Artemov (PB) and Natalia Yurchenko (VT).
TECHNICAL RESULTS
Druzhba-84 international gymnastics tournament. Olomouc.
Women. All-around final: 1. O. Mostepanova (URS) - 79.825 (10, 10, 10, 10); 2. H. Ricna (TCH) - 79.425 (10, 10, 9.85, 9.9); 3. M. Gnauck (GDR) - 79.125 (9.95, 9.5, 9.95, 10) and E. Shushunova (URS) - 79.125 (9.95, 9.95, 9.9, 9.9); 5. A. Drevjana (TCH) - 79.1 (9.9, 9.95, 10, 9.85) and N. Yurchenko (URS) - 79.1 (10, 9.9, 10, 9.75).