Sovetsky Sport. August 2, 1968. Larisa Petrik wandered along the beam. She jumped, froze, quietly waved her arms - completely at east, detached from the hustle and bustle. Vikenty Dmitrievich Dmitriev stood near the platform, his chin in his hands, looking up at her with serene, bright eyes.
Petrik jumped off the beam and squatted down, bending her high-cheekboned, pale face towards Dmitriev, on which, under flying eyebrows, there was an eternal lack of satisfaction, burning, anxiety, and impulse.
"It's not working? Yes, Vikench, it's not working? I can't do a toe turn."
"You probably just over-rosined it," Dmitriev said in a flat tone, and Petrik actually bent her leg and stared at her heel: "Maybe it was a trifle - excess rosin?"
"Are you tired?" Dmitriev asked.
I was standing next to him, and next to me was the actor Valentin Gaft, who would be playing the coach in the film. And at these words from Dmitriev, he nudged me in the side and breathed excitedly into my ear: look, he said, what a great artist this Dmitriev was, how he hid within himself, beneath his aloofness, a tremendous, sensitive intensity, and it only burst forth, splashing forth, in a short question: "Are you tired?"
It's telling - it was someone completely uninvolved in our affairs who notices all this ego, but I've known Vikencha for several years, wr're friends, I only see him when he's unflappable, and I'm used to him like that. He walks with a slight sway, while any other coach in his place would have sulked past, dijected by his student's failure. Dmitriev is having trouble with Petrik - nerves, falls - but he, looking the same as always, waiting for me to ask him something. But what should I ask him?
- Well, how is she?
- She's worried.
- And you?
- What about me? It's unpleasant, of course.
- What did you tell her?
- What can I say? This isn't the last competition of my life.
If he weren't like that, things would have gone badly for Petrik, his best student so far, a truly remarkable athlete, but oh so difficult! Aida Aleksandrovna Selezneva, her choreographer, in a conversation with me, both admired Petrik ("She understands everything, feels everything, working with her is a pleasure!"), and complained ("She gets excited and can't contain herself, today she's a queen, tomorrow - nothing!"), and asked rhetorically: "Well, how can we live with her - like this?" "No way," I said. "She can't be any different: nature, in creating her, forgot about one detail that is essential for a gymnast's stability, so to speak - a small piece of ice in the area of the heart."
For Petrik, Dmitriev is, among other things, like valerian drops. He doesn't force his reassurances on her, but lets her worry to her heart's content, get lost, maybe even cry, and only then mutters something like, "Not the last in life." Coaching is a delicate matter, and the dose of valerian is also measured in milligrams.
You can't get a word out of him. Not a word that's useful, either. He's from Leningrad, he lived through the siege as a boy and was evacuated along the "Road of Life" across Lake Ladoga. After the war, he took up gymnastics, reached the top ranks, got injured, dropped out, graduated from college, was invited to Vitebsk as the director of the children's sports school, and off he went. That's all. At first, he lived right in the gym. "Did you sleep on mats?" I ask. "Why mats? I bought a folding bed." Now he's got an apartment and lives alone, being a bachelor. "Who does your laundry and cooks?" "I eat in the cafeteria," he says. "And I learned to wash my own clothes during training camp. And anyway," (he says this without any enthusiasm), "I really need to think about a family. Thirty-seven, it's time, right?"
Since the hero of this article is extremely sparing in his statements, further reflections on him will be based on his specific practice.
For the past four years, he has been known as the coach of Larisa Petrik, who became the all-around national champion at age fifteen (in 1964). He also had another talented student, Lyudmila Arguchinskaya, who suffered a serious injury and only now, after a long break, has returned to the sport. But today, following the conclusion of the USSR youth championships, we can confidently call Dmitriev the coach of our best femalt gymnast, Tamara Lazakovich. This success of his is fundamental and deserves special mention.
Tamara Lazakovich won all four apparatus finals. But unlike many of her competitors, she didn't show off any of the stunning tricks that have become fashionable these days: she didn't do a back handspring on the balance beam, a vault with a twist, or a single spin. And yet she charms. Not only the spectators - they're easily won over by her childlike charm. But also the judges, who pay tribute to her elegance, confidence, the calligraphic quality of her handwriting, the utmost polish of every element, every movement, and the fact that these elements and movements are effortless, easy, imbued with pride and pleasure.
I remember a year ago, Tamara made it to the adult balance beam finals of the Peoples' Spartakiad. Honestly, there are few coaches who, given such a stroke of luck, wouldn't immediately rack their brains trying to figure out which of their memorized (or even under-memorized) tricks to add to their routine to satisfy the judges' demand for difficulty, so as not to miss the opportunity to build on their success. But Vikench told Tamara to perform her old, familiar routine, and they'd judge it out of nine points. She cried afterward, but he remained unfazed.
Today, Lazakovich is not only and not simply a good athlete. She is a clincher in a debate that is far from settled.There's no longer even talk of early specialization in gymnastics. Specialization exists. The question is: what comes first or second - difficulty or purity? Should we first build a solid foundation of simple movements and then plunge into the stormy sea of the unknown, or create and invest first, and then refine - then? Only time will tell, for our young athletes are only at the beginning of their journey.
Dmitriev is unhurried, not inclined to rush days, hours, and minutes with a whip. He trusts the natural course of development, peering closely at his students, trying to discern what nature is giving them and demanding of them today, precisely today. The strong and passionate Petrik, whom I'm tempted to call by the name that the girls on the national team do - "Petka" - she really does bear a slight resemblance to Chapaev's Petka the Machine Gunner - was once ahead of her peers in development, and Vikench allowed her to train with the boys, climb the equipment with them, and play their games. And later, in the group of older girls, she stood head and shoulders above everyone else; she would dare her friends to perform any element they wanted to see who could do better, and they would refuse, because she invariably won.
As for Lazakovich, he keeps a stricter grip on her, doesn't let her repeat the same combination ten times - the girl is jealously in love with Petrik, she's jumping after her, and if you don't stop her in time, she'll burn out.
That's what Vikench is like - slow, deceptively naive, and somehow mysterious. How did he actually manage to raise such queens? They are truly queens: beautiful and slender on their perfectly pointed toes, proud of their gymnastics and of themselves in it, listening lovingly and attentively to every one of his few words. His friends joke about him: "Vikench, why are they so stylish when you're such a slob yourself?" He chuckles, raising his pale eyebrows. Why, indeed? Until recently, his gym in Vitebsk was tiny: to vault, you had to prop mats against the wall or else you'd break your forehead. The school still doesn't have a choreographer, nor an acrobat.
It's just that he must always know what he wants. What coach wouldn't be heartrboken when a strange choreographer from a strange city choreographs floor routines sets for his students - completely his own, according to his own idea, and you, the coach, doesn't seem to have anything do do with it? Aida Selezneva told me about Vikench that he didn't interfere at all with her work with Petrik, only observed, and Petrik's Gypsy Dance turned out to be so perfect that a lump rises in your throat from the compete harmony that is carrying the girl over the floor mat. At the same time, Vikench can be incredibly stubborn when certain academics approach him with recommendations on the training process. He keeps silent and stands his ground. Maybe there's little good in this, but that's just the way he is - if he trusts someone, he trusts them, and if not - don't be offended.
But it's impossible not to trust him, Vikenty Dmitrievich. It's downright impossible.
S. TOKAREV