Sovetsky Sport. March 13, 1990. Gymnastics television commentator and Master of Sports Alexander Barmin talks with an eyewitness of many official gymnastics competitions, a participant in two world championships and the Rome Olympics, a Merited Master of Sports, international-category judge Valery Kerdemelidi.
Since you've been representing our country as a judge in recent years, let's start with the problems of judging. Do they exist? Let's take at least the maximum score, 10, which has long ceased to be something exceptional.
This problem exists. At the Seoul Olympics, there were twenty-three scores of 10 in the men's competition.
But what about the judges' 'games' in the distribution of medals even before the athletes step onto the platform? You wouldn't say that this doesn't happen, would you?
Yes, it happens. Each judge, with all his objectivity, has personal sympathies. And the desire to occasionally 'tweak' the perennial leaders, in this case our masters, is traditional!
Is it possible to say that the ratio of the other main criteria in gymnastics - difficulty and class - has changed over the past year?
One year is too short, but gymnastics doesn't stand still for a day. It's impossible to stop the growth of difficulty, and there is no need. Over time, the judge's view of each gymnastic element changes. It's also necessary to take into account that at the beginning of the next Olympic cycle, the quality of program execution is not judged so strictly for the first year or two. This gives time to find and master new routines, update programs, and give talented newcomers time to gain competitive experience. As we get closer to the Olympics, the judges' attention turns to the performance class.
Whose gymnastic style can serve as a standard today?
The style of Igor Korobchinsky and Valentin Mogilny, who distinguished themselves at the last world championships.
Since we're talking about our leaders, let's take a look at today's trump cards and tomorrow's prospects for gymnasts who are capable of winning in the near future.
The same Korobchinsky, having suddenly become a leader, may remain so tomorrow. He has a good gymnastics background, good physical and psychological potential. Mogilny, due to his 'school' and the purity of his line, has maintained his authority for quite a long time. And he has enough strength. Vitaly Marinich, since we started talking about the participants in the 1989 world championship, in my opinion has great internal energy, which should last for a long time, despite his external melancholy. Newcomer to the team Valery Belenky has an interesting program and is quite clean. It was not by chance that he got into the team. It seems to me that the most difficult thing will be for Artemov to survive. Firstly, he is the oldest on the team and has accumulated the most physical and psychological fatigue. It is no longer possible for him to perform poorly, and it is difficult for him to perform as brilliantly as before. But the Stuttgart reserves, Grigory Misyutin and Vitaly Scherbo, are not burdened with anything. They have modern programs and a confident character. In general, they are promising.
These words can probably be applied to not only the world championship participants?
Yes, there are several gymnasts on the way to the national team. For example, Kharkov resident Rustam Sharipov, who won the national youth championship. Or Alexander Kolyvanov from Voronezh, whom we haven't heard about for a long time.
We somehow forgot some of our Olympians.
The absence of the Seoul starters on the Stuttgart platform explains the 'shortfall' of two gold medals compared to the Olympics. Valery Lyukin and Sergei Kharkov are recovering from serious injuries. Although Dmitry Bilozerchev is training, he is clearly not working hard in my opinion. He himself has not yet decided for sure whether to continue his sports career or stop. It seems to me that he could restore his former form and get into the team again, but for this he needs to work hard and not spare himself.
You touched on the topic of preserving leadership in gymnastics for years. After all, it's incredibly difficult to do this today. How to explain the phenomenon of Korolev, Bilozerchev, and Artemov?
A prerequisite here is the extraordinary character of the athlete. Otherwise, everything depends on the individual's ability to 'mothball' at the level of leaders and, to some extent, on luck. Analyzing the performances of all-around winners at world championships, and especially at the Olympics, I came to the conclusion that there is a certain pattern at work here, which I would formulate as the law of 'average' performance. The winner in the all-around championship is the one whose program has been well established for a long time, the execution has been refined and debugged, and not the one who openly takes risks and tries to amaze with something incredible, super-complicated.
But at the last world championship, the all-around winner was Korobchinsky, whose program is difficult and risky. So, his victory is an exception to the rule?
Maybe. Now there is a completely new formula for identifying winners: in the final competitions, preliminary scores received in previous days are not taken into account. The athlete's well-being, judges' and spectators' sympathy, luck - these are the factors of victory.
Doesn't this new regulation for finals conceal a threat to the leadership of Soviet gymnastics?
Of course, each victory will now depend on chance to a greater extent than before, but our coaches, I am sure, will change their competition and training tactics in connection with this.
In my opinion, our main competitors are still behind us in preparing reserves.
Yes. For example, in Japan they start doing gymnastics later. In addition, their gymnastics club system is not as effective. In China, gymnastics is similar in organization to ours. But even there, 13- and 14-year-olds still do not have such a gigantic baggage as their Soviet peers. The exchange of information about our coaches is wider. Therefore, I look forward to tomorrow with optimism.