Sovetsky Sport. December 3, 1966. The visiting editorial office of our newspaper, which attended the 1966 Tashkent gymnastics championship, held a roundtable dedicated to the problems of developing this sport. The meeting was attended by: V. Muratov (Moscow) - senior coach of the national team; T. Demidenko (Moscow) - senior coach of the women's national team; Yu. Shtukman (Voronezh) - merited coach of the USSR; K. Karakashyants (Moscow) - merited coach of the USSR; R. Sarkisov (Tashkent) - merited coach of the USSR; S. Karagesyan (Yerevan) - merited coach of the USSR; V. Safronov (Leningrad) - acrobatics coach of the national team; A. Mishakov (Kiev) - merited coach ofthe USSR; Ya. Kravets (Moscow) - international-category judge; N. Miligulo (Minsk) - master of sports, student of the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the CPSU; V. Shelkovnikov (Moscow) - merited coach of the RSFSR; V. Silin (Leningrad) - merited coach of the USSR; Ya. Fradkov (Moscow) - deputy chairman of the USSR Gymnastics Federation.
The participants' statements were broad in scope and touched upon the most pressing issues in the development of modern gymnastics. We are publishing them not in order of the speeches, but by combining statements on the most pressing issues discussed at the meeting.
About Difficulty and Purity
From the very beginning of the debate, opinions clashed over one of the main questions: which path should we take, and which requirements for our gymnasts should be given top priority?
V. Safronov: At the USSR championship, many young athletes performed highly complex exercises; for example, they did double twists in floor exercises but received low marks. We saw a trend of focusing on tricks without the necessary foundation, without mastering the basics of acrobatics. This led to many execution errors, and sometimes even injuries. By the time an athlete reaches their peak age, they are often no longer able to perform a number of difficult elements - they have aches and pains everywhere...
Ya. Kravets: The direction taken by the gymnastics federation on this issue is generally correct, although I do not agree with some things. We do sometimes teach double twists without the appropriate foundation. In particular, this applies to such a respected coach as K. Karakashyants and his student V. Klimenko. I think that Karakashyants needs to think not only about the tricks themselves, but also about the cleanliness of their execution.
R. Sarkisov: Our young people have become preoccupied with difficulty, forgetting about the purity of execution. We need to think more about reuniting these two components, because now, as I see it, nothing is working together. We don't see the kind of compositions we need today. Klimenko seems to be good in everything, but he performs sloppily. And a gymnast is like an artist, everything he does should be perfectly polished.
Yu. Shtukman: If they tell me: "Do only the old routines, but cleanly," I would change my profession. I've watched Klimenko, and I have no concerns about him. He needs to be creative, he needs to take risks and not be treated like a puppet by the coaches. Why shouldn't Karasev do a double twist if he can do a single one all the way to the ceiling? Here's Dinamo's Ilinykh, another of our Olympic hopes, a great gymnast, very clean, but his routines could use more power, even if he bends his legs somewhere along the way. We're currently thinking more about things like, say, Trud beating Dinamo or vice versa. I dream of beating Caslavska. At the world championship in women's floor exercises we overwhelmed everyone with our twists, but how did Kuchinskaya learn that twist? Sometimes she would fall, sometimes she would perform it perfectly. But she learned it and led others. I repeat, it is necessary to increase the difficulty. Cleanliness? Do we really not believe in our own abilities?
K. Karakashyants: Two years ago we also debated complexity and purity of execution, and the gymnastics federation made the right decision - to drastically increase the difficulty level. What was the result? Previously, only a few people could do a full-twisting somersault, but now many - both young and experienced gymnasts - perform this element of the highest category as if it were an ordinary one. I think we have already reached the level of difficulty that we will need for a successful performance in Mexico City. But now we are in the period of polishing the 'semi-finished products.' And if one of the young athletes, say, my Klimenko, performs a routine not cleanly enough, with mistakes, then these are the mistakes of growth, of progress, and not of regression. Klimenko is younger than many, and the difficulty of his exercises is higher. If we were to eliminate half of this difficulty, he might get scores around 9.8. But I am preparing him for the Olympics and do not want to treat him like a child.
V. Reison: Let's recall the performance of the young gymnast Z. Sergeyeva at last year's USSR championship. She did a somersault on the balance beam - not as a dismount! Was it necessary? Given her level of training at the time, and the overall level of her routine - no. It seems that we are forcing 11- or 12-year-old girls to perform 'deadly' routines with their eyes closed. If Kuchinskaya didn't have a solid foundation, I wouldn't have made her do twists, like they did with Druzhinina. We are chasing after extreme difficulty, forgetting about what we have already achieved. I am a proponent of a flexible combination of all aspects of training. I may seem old-fashioned, but it seems to me that it is better to make the exercise simpler, but at a higher, I dare say, cultural level. Judge for yourselves - is it necessary for the entire women's national team to perform twists? Is it necessary for Petrik to have ten elements of the highest difficulty category on the balance beam? But in our case, it turns out like this: Dzhanukashvili performed a daring but clumsy vault at the USSR championship, got a gold medal for it, so everyone should start practicing twisting vaults. And that's wrong.
Yu. Shtukman: I ask for the floor again. Reison's comments surprised me. What does 'deadly' mean? So what if a girl does a flip or somersault on the balance beam and falls - she loses a point, what's so bad about that? If you've practiced it, you know how to do it, you've tried it on the floor, on a low beam, then confidently step onto a high one! If the athlete is not ready, the coach should not let her do it. But what if she is ready?...
T. Demidenko: They say that the Czechoslovakian gymnasts at the world championships in Dortmund did not show anything impressive in terms of difficulty. I think this happened because the draw worked in their favor; they performed later than their main competitors and did not need to take risks. If we were in this situation, we would also sacrificed some of our more difficult tricks. Even if today in the FIG there is a tendency to pay more attention to execution rather than difficulty, we still have to move forward, increasing the difficulty, especially in those events in which we are lagging behind.
As It Is Cut, So It Is Sewn
From the debate about the difficulty and purity of routines, it is quite natural to move on to a related question: about the composition of gymnastics routines, about how successfully the tricks are sewn into the overall fabric of the routines.
V. Safronov: In Dortmund I watched the Japanese floor exercises very carefully. I will take the three best ones - Nakayama, Kato, and Endo - and compare them with the three best of ours - Voronin, Karasev, and Diomidov. In terms of difficulty, we were almost as good as them. I can even say that we were not inferior at all. But their scores were significantly higher. This happened because our athletes' acrobatics were not integrated into the routine, not composed with it. For example, Karasev did a round-off, back handspring, and a salto diagonally across the carpet and then stopped. The Japanese gymnast in this case would definitely transition to some kind of roll, into any simple but fast and original combination. Our problem is that we sometimes don't bother to frame a sufficiently bright, effective, and difficult element. And once again about Karasev. I calculated what he and the Italian Menichelli, an outstanding master of floor exercises, did: the first one - 14 elements of the highest category, the second one - 20; Karasev did round-off, back handspring, full twist. Menichelli: front handspring, front somersault, round-off, back handspring, full twist. In other words, Menichelli's routine was designed to make maximum use of the entire carpet space.
A. Mishakov: We, the coaches, are hampered in preparing the routine by too many special requirements imposed from above. A sideways somersault is mandatory, a stop is mandatory, a jump is mandatory. Our hands are tied! I could never make Latynina do a slow somersault on the balance beam - she bends, sort of like me. And she is a two-time Olympic champion. Latynina lost at our [domestic] competitions, it happened, precisely because she did not fulfill the special requirements.
V. Shelkovnikov: I fully agree with Mishakov. Special requirements are not all beneficial when composing modern routines that we need. We have wound up too many difficult elements, but besides Group C, the first group is also obligatory - here are the wise ones, how to tie it together.
T. Demidenko: I believe that the [USSR] federation is on the right track in the matter of special requirements. Special requirements help improve the composition of the exercise, and our success on the beam and in the floor is a clear illustration of this.
Under The Flag Of A Smile
The issues of psychological preparation of an athlete are extremely important in general, and in preparation for the largest All-Union and international competitions in particular. Of course, we couldn't help but talk about this at our roundtable.
Ya. Kravets: There is a lot of talk now about the shortcomings of our team's psychological preparation for the world championship. The issue should have worried us in advance, but unfortunately it didn't happen that way. It was entirely natural that Diomidov could not withstand the stress of the team and all-around competitions in Dortmund.
V. Silin: I do not agree with Kravets' opinion. This is a serious issue, and we do not always understand it correctly. Even I, who is considered an expert in this field, cannot know everything completely. However, I am sure that the psychological preparation of gymnasts begins long before the competition, and we do not take into account many subtleties in this regard.
Let's take the warm up. Both the Japanese and Czechoslovakian gymnasts avoided doing entire routines during the warm up, showing small parts that we saw later during the competition. For example, Caslavska would do three or four outstanding elements of a routine during the warm up, setting the spectators, judges, and her competitors up to the task. I agree, this was a trick, but it's time for us to learn similar tricks.
A. Mishakov: I don't agree with Silin. What is this - pieces, pieces? Nonsense! If you are well prepared, boldly plan on warming up and do the routine in its entirety, and even several times. That's how, say, Muratov once used to do. That was psychological preparation. Consequently, we should not talk about the psychological unpreparedness of athletes, but about poor preparatory work on the part of the coaches, on our part.
N. Miligulo: Why, for example, is Natasha Kuchinskaya always cheerful and perky during competitions, no matter how difficult it is for her, but our men's team always looks gloomy? We would be wrong if we decided that this plays a small role. It was nice to watch the Japanese - it seemed like everything was easy for them, even if it was really hard. Gymnastics is such a sport that you have to be artistic, you have to learn to present it as if you were going out on the platform not as a difficult job, but as if you were going to a fun performance.
Results And Concerns
Anxious notes were heard in the speeches when the conversation turned to the results of the world championship in Dortmund. This conversation naturally touched on a wider range of issues, concerning the details of preparation for the major, main competitions of the season.
Ya. Kravets: Naturally, I'm expressing a subjective opinion. But it seems to me that our women could have avoided losing at the world championship. This, however, does not mean that we should justify our own shortcomings. I will focus on a few things. Let's take two apparatuses that need special attention because we are failing on them, and this was evident at the world championship. The first one, vaulting, is lagging far behind. In my opinion, no one in our country knows how to vault properly, and even such talented coaches like Yu. Shtukman and V. Smirnov, although they know the methodology, do not yet know how to teach their students modern vaulting techniques. This is confirmed by performances at All-Union competitions, where the lowest scores are consistently given on the vault.
Regarding the uneven bars, another discipline where we lag, the situation is better here. The coaches know how to train gymnasts and know how to put together excellent routines. It's just that the current national team was very young and did not have time to master the full range of skills necessary for modern-level performances. I believe that the national team coaches simply did not have enough time.
For the men, things are both more complicted and simpler. Let's be honest: our men's team was undeniably weak. To be honest, it was also quite old. While acknowledging the achievements of gymnasts like Shakhlin, Titov, and Kerdemelidi, I can't help but say that it would have been better to send others.
M. Levin: I perfectly understand the coaches who, at this roundtable, express dissatisfaction with the performance of our teams at the last world championship. The question arises: who is to blame for this? Personally, I believe that the USSR Gymnastics Federation is to blame. In my opinion, within the Federation itself, among its leaders and national team coaches, there is no single, definitively developed opinion on the paths and future of this sport. To avoid making unsubstantiated claims, I will give you the following example. Two years ago, a four-year, long-term plan was developed to prepare our team for the most important competitions. Two years have passed, and the world championship has taken place. Why should we now be discussing the same issues again, if everything was thought out and planned systematically?
I regret to say that the results are generally deplorable. I think that in recent time our gymnastics has not been progressing, but regressing. And the senior coach of the national team, V. Muratov, who had very good intentions, was unable to withstand the external influences that were exerted on him.
A. Mishakov: I take the blame for Shakhlin's failure at the world championship. I objected to his inclusion in the team, but did not stand my ground. We have no right to jeopardize the reputation of an Olympic champion, a distinguished gymnast on the world championship stage. We should have tried out Medvedev, Arkaev, or Vashchaev. Shakhlin was psychologically devastated at that time, and even more so now - after the championship.
T. Demidenko: We encountered significant difficulties when preparing the women's team for the world championships. An entire age group was sidelined to due injuries and other reasons, and the situation became critical. In 1964, the current members of the national team appeared, who were still very young at the time. We put in a lot of effort to prepare them, but we didn't succeed - there wasn't enough time. Where it was easier - in floor exercises and on the balance beam, it went smoothly, but where special strength training was required - on vault and especially on the bars, there our girls were simply not mature in terms of age.
At previous world championships we won not because we had strong team leaders, but thanks to the fifth- and sixth-ranked gymnasts. Often, we practically did not even know which of the six had the best chance of winning.
I would like to say a few words about the scientific development of methods for preparing athletes for competitions of this level. This matter is excellently organized, for example, in the GDR. There, in 1959, the research institute was given the direct task of developing a training methodology for training vaults. This issue was thoroughly researched, and we saw the results at the world championship. Let's say, Starke flies up so high during a vault that she still managed to spread and bring her arms together in the first plase of the flight. This is a fantastic technique. But in order to prepare such a vault, you need to take into account the technique, and speed of the run, and many other details. Our scientific and methodological centers often work in a scholastic manner, and their many years of research do not bring any practical benefit to gymnastics.
It wouldn't be a bad idea for us to borrow the GDR's experience in another respect as well. There, the coaches work with the national team in a team-based manner - each one on a separate event or even on a separate detail of that event.
V. Muratov: Yes, we really lost, not only with the men's team but also with the women's team. The women missed out on victory for the first time. To our delight, Kuchinskaya and Voronin have improved significantly. However, these are individual cases, and we don't have a cohesive national team as a whole.
It seems to me that our shortcomings in vaulting for men and women, and therefore our failures in Dortmund, are explained by the following circumstance: specialists and athletes think that this apparatus is not a demanding discipline, and therefore they do not dedicate enough time to it. But vaulting requires just as much work as, say, on exercises on the parallel bars or pommel horse.
One more detail. There is a lot of talk now about individual training, about the need to individualize training to the maximum extent, based on the athlete's age, gender, and character. I consider one of my mistakes in preparing for the world championship to be that, as the senior coach, I let the training of individual gymnasts become too unstructured, allowing them to work only according to their individual plan. It became impossible to manage; everyone had their own plan. You ask: why isn't this person training in the morning? It turns out that he moved his training to the evening, that's his plan. People were trusting their own feelings too much, paying too much attention to their ailments, when they should have been feeling that way they were supposed to feel that day. Until the last moment, Diomidov and his coach Sarkisov were preparing four dismounts from the horizontal bar, not knowing which one of them would actually be performed in Dortmund. And time was being wasted because of these hesitations.
Points - To Whom And For What?
The direction of the conversation about judging was reduced, as you will see for yourself, not to a discussion of individual cases of errors, but to the question of the general principled line in judging, helping to educate gymnasts.
A. Mishakov: At the current national championship, I noticed a positive trend in the work of the judging teams. This is very important; it's the first step to future victory at the Olympic Games. What does this trend consist of? First of all, there is a tendency to lower the score for poorly executed, extremely difficult elements that are not supported by the overall level of the exercise and general gymnastics culture. Unfortunately, our judges often inflate the scores. A person will score 115 points at home, but when he comes to the national championship he will not even reach 100. In recent years, the judges have been poor assistants for us, the coaches. They were often guided by various opportunistic considerations. But now if the gymnast, having received a low score for his daring trick, thinks that maybe his run up is bad, and the first phase of the vault is no good, and neither is the second, then perhaps he will temporarily abandon the twist for the time being and will do a simple handspring instead.
S. Karagesyan: In selecting the composition of the national team, one must be objective and proceed from the real results shown at the USSR championship. This is an axiom. But what if the judges are not always objective, if they are dominated by a personal, departmental, territorial interest? So guess.
I agree with Mishakov: a difficult trick, performed poorly, should not be judged as a complete one by the judges. I remember the Armenian athlete Aznavuryan performed a difficult vault but sat down on the floor. And he got 9.7. How is that acceptable? Some people say that it was a mistake to not take Dzhanukashvili to the world championships. They say that our vaults are lagging behind, and she is a good vaulter. I am sure that with a vault like the one that made her the national champion, she would have received no more than 8 points in Dortmund.
Ya. Kravets: We have really formed a gap between the work of coaching councils and judging panels - even at the highest level. There is no single line on this issue, and at the local level there are simply outrages in judging. A judge must not only be a cold-blooded observer of events but also influence the development of sports as a whole.
Two Lines
T. Demidenko: If we analyze how our strongest athletes reached the pinnacle of their skill, we will get a paradox. Those who diligently followed all the proscribed steps never became top-class athletes, while those who were deviated from the sequence of mandatory requirements of the classification program became leaders. There are currently proposals to remove the programs for the First Youth and Second Adult categories from the classification system. I think this is reasonable. We introduced the title of Candidate Master, and immediately talented young people appeared who were preparing only an optional program. In this sense, coaches received a greater opportunity for creativity. This approach should be continued.
Ya. Fradkov: We now believe that it is necessary to create three teams in the republic sports societies: youth, junior, and main. Getting into any of these teams should be a great celebration and a great honor to the athlete.
And In Conclusion...
We are pleased to note that an interesting, businesslike conversation took place at our roundtable. Judging by the sharp, principled tone, the clash of sometimes polar points of view, there was a great need for such a conversation, and it turned out to be timely.
One of the most fundamental issues in the discussion was the question of combining the difficulty of exercises and the purity of their execution in the preparation of a gymnast. This sport is not new and, obviously, eternal. In recent years, one or another type of routine has been put at the forefront: sometimes we were overly carried away by difficulty, sometimes by 'schoolness,' and at the same time forgot there should be a golden mean, which includes first of all, school (and it is traditional in our gymnastics), and on this basis it is possible and necessary to prepare tricks necessary for the arrangement of exercises at the modern level. And if the difficulty needs to be increased, then not by following the line of a thoughtless set of extremely difficult elements, but by a reasonable search for original unique tricks inherent in the individuality of a given athlete. At the same time, when preparing the 'highlight,' one must not forget what is needed first and foremost is the 'kvass' itself - in other words, the trick element must fit seamlessly into the fabric of the entire routine.
There is another side to the issue that needs to be taken into account. Gymnastics is literally getting younger, and this process hides a certain trick in its depths. Youth is a risk taker, and when training young people, coaches need to be especially wise and careful, even viligant. Tricks must be learned, but only with the appropriate physical and technical base. The combination of youthful courage and coaching thoughtfulness, knowledge will give us the reinforcement that we now especially need.
There was no disagreement on the issue of judging. A point of view has been formulated, which we also support: a judge should not be an impassive recorder but a person who draws a certain line, calculated not for a one-second performance, but for the entire long process of developing our gymnastics.
Perhaps for the first time in recent years, a frank and unflattering conversation took place, where it was said without any beating around the bush that we performed below our capabilities at this year's world championships. And if previously the conversation was most often about men's gymnastics, now alarming notes have been timely sounded in relation to women's, especially in such events as the vault and uneven bars. It must be said that the national championship in Tashkent was a visual aid in this regard. It turned out that the flaws in the preparation of the elite are deeply rooted in the mass of gymnasts. Hence the conclusion: it is necessary to urgently pay special attention to these events, starting with the junior categories.
In general, it's necessary to say the following: today the contours of the 1968 team, the one that should be in Mexico City, are clear. We only lack a concrete expression of this team, and it is necessary, because time does not wait. Let's say more: I would like to feel the future prospects today, the contour, say, of the 1972 national team, the trend of its preparation. It is necessary to understand all this immediately, since the cultivation of the modern extra-class gymnast is a complex and lengthy process.