Sovetsky Sport. May 29, 1970 (our special correspondents). The women entered the competition at the USSR gymnastics championships. After completing the compulsory program, the Dinamo team is in the lead, and national champion L. Burda is leading in the individual competition.
Representatives of three generations competed at the highest level. The elders (though how young they are!) - Olga Karaseva and Zinaida Voronina - had to prove that experience and class are more valuable than youthful enthusiasm; the youngest (say, Tamara Lazakovich and Olya Korbut) - that youthful enthusiasm compensates for the lack of experience; and the middle ones - Lyubov Burda and Lyudmila Turischeva - that a fusion of both can bring the owners of the last numbers of the Olympic team to the first numbers of the team of the new call-up.
Voronin junior - Dimka - is 10 months old. His mother is already on the platform, and by God, it's amazing how she managed to catch up so quickly and so much. However, quite recently the second (and potentially then the first) gymnast in the world, she is now in the gym, as if in a forest: all the unfamiliar competitors are new, the routines are new - how rapid is the change of time and names in women's gymnastics!
Her scores ranged from 9.25 to 9.6. But these numbers also have their own subtext.
Coach V. Shelkovnikov set the following task for Zina: "There is no need to surprise anyone, you just need to show your preparation for today." She understood and acknowledged this point of view, but she was more worried than ever.
She was also the first on the apparatus - uneven bars - to compete. As they say, she cramped up, skimped on amplitude, and then simply said to herself: "Everything is stiff." At first she did well on the balance beam, and she was in a hurry to get off it as soon as possible, but the judging on the beam is strict, the routine must be performed on the toes, but she, having wobbled once or twice, stood on her entire foot, even biting her lip. Before floor exercise, she calmed down and looked like her old self on the floor, although more restrained than before, more mature. Her vault with her arms traditionally outstretched like wings in the first phase of flight was also good, and overall she was pleased with herself.
Olga Karaseva, having acquired good stability and confidence since last year, performs better on the internationa stage where she has the best reputation, than on the All-Union stage - here she is less taken into account. It was very necessary for her to go higher than usual. Especially since the compulsory program gives an advantage to an experienced gymnast.
At first glance, the current compulsory program is simple, but insidiousness lurks in this simplicity. It seems to relax the athletes and disperse their attention. There are only one or two complicated elements, there seems to be no place to lose tenths if there are no breakdowns, but there are a lot of difficult little things: turns, swings, hand and body positions.
Karaseva is the leader of the Army team, and this placed an additional burden on her. However, she is a cheerful person, everything went smoothly for her, and her floor ws performed more accurately and closest to the ideal (her 9.7 was the highest score of the day on this apparatus). Before the last event, she was in the lead, with the bars remaining.
An unexpected drama unfolded here. During the dismount, her hand came off the bar, the element was crumpled, and the judges didn't count it at all - 7.6. Everything is lost. "What is this? It was an accident!" She walked through the arena, proudly carrying her blond head, and said as she walked: "What bad luck and how to fight it?" She smiled dazzingly and went backstage to cry.
When she returned, she saw Korbut fall from the bars. "It's my fault." Korbut also got 7.6, and we will talk about her separately, but about Karaseva we will note that her breakdown was obviously an accident. She is a courageous person and a real fighter.
National champion Burda has given herself a grown-up hairstyle and has grown 10 cm. over the past year and a half. There was not a shadow of concern on her face, not a single fussy movement - everything is calibrated and checked. She handles the apparatus so calmly that you don't even think that she might miss somewhere. Her lines became softer, and some lyricism emerged in the dry compulsory routines. Maybe this is the future leader of the national team?
Burda's coach, Yu. Shtukman, spoke about his student: "She prepared very, very seriously. I'm pleased with her. Before the start, I sat down with Lyuba and she said: 'I'm afraid, Yuri Eduardovich.' I replied: 'I'm afraid too.' Lyuba smiled, and I felt by telling the truth, I relieved her tension. She calmed down from the knowledge that everyone's nerves were not made of iron. Everything is going according to plan so far."
Shtukman often thinks about the psychological preparation of his students, how to direct their natural excitement caused by competition, and how to artifically restrain it, but then there is no interest in competitions and excitement disappears.
V. Rastorotsky, Turischeva's coach, has his own worries at the end of the day - he is excited and angry. "The main thing is that Lyuda makes mistakes when she doesn't do what I said. I speak to the point, she nods but it doesn't get to her, and I explain to her: 'You see, my words are going into emptiness.' She didn't have a lift in the floor. She likes to grab and lead, but here she was all of a sudden going to floor exercise in fourth place, and she didn't have a lift. He thinks, and suddenly asks himself: 'Or maybe she was told to do ten routines on the balance beam this morning, maybe she's tired?' I'm looking and looking, and when I find it, I don't know. but I will find it!"
We don't know how things stand with the implementation of instructions, the coach knows better, but we can definitely say that Turischeva was diligent and serious, as usual. You should have seen how, before going out onto the beam, she motionlessly mentally repeated the routine, and only her hands shimmered with thought. At the end of the routine, she staggered and miraculously kept herself from falling. Neither she nor her coach can say what's wrong. She tried, she tried all the time.
Tamara Lazakovich, nicknamed Lazya - a pale, slender, evil little devil, with lips like a string - said to herself before the uneven bars: 'Lazya (that's what she said), do it calmly like in training .' She really needs to fight for her place in the sun - when you are already 16 and have been showing great hope for three years, you desperately want to justify them as quickly as possible. On bars, where her best score of the day was 9.6, she was tense and taut as a string. As she performed on beam, she pulled herself together and relaxed again. On floor it was like a dream. "You're pleased with yourself?" "No." "Are you mad at yourself?" "Ooo!" She threw her head back restlessly. She is a difficult 'specimen,' and it's not easy for coach V. Dmitriev to work with her, but her character is as much her trump card as her impeccable, even somewhat grim, elegance and purity - qualities that are especially valuable in our time of craze for tricks to the detriment of this very purity. The listed qualities give her advantages in the compulsory program, where the strict lines are more important than variegated colors, and Lazakovich is still in fourth.
The youngest - Korbut - was the most independent on the platform. Her coach, the mysterious R. Knysh, simply stood on the platform. This is his theory: a person must be able to manage without a nanny. Korbut was in sixth place the entire time, and only a breakdown on the uneven bars dropped her far back. However, for Korbut the breakdown is less sad than for Karaseva - she has everything ahead of her and most importantly, she continues to prove that she will not get lost against the backdrop of any mature company.
We chose the six about whom the story was told in advance and, therefore, arbitrarily. As you can see, these were not the top six; two of our characters are now in the distant lines of the results. We also understand that six is a tricky number. This is, in essence, a world championship team, and they may suspect that we are offering some kind of our own version. This, of course, is not so, we do not forget about those who are now really on the top six nor, say, Petrik, who will certainly participate in the USSR Cup - the second stage of selection. In general, different options are possible, the choice is rich, but such a composition would, really, not be the worst.
TECHNICAL RESULTS
USSR gymnastics championships. Minsk. 28 May. Compulsory program. 1. Burda (Spartak) - 37.95 (9.65, 9.4, 9.25, 9.55); 2. Voronina (Dinamo) - 37.85 (9.5, 9.5, 9.25, 9.6); 3. Turischeva (Dinamo) - 37.75 (9.55, 9.5, 9.1, 9.6); 4. Lazakovich (Dinamol) - 37.55 (9.4, 9.6, 9.1, 9.4); 5. Saadi (Dinamo) - 37.2 (9.35, 9.1, 9.25, 9.5); 6. Schegolkova (Dinamo) - 37.1 (9.4, 9.3, 9.0, 9.4).
Team standings. 1. Dinamo - 224.45; 2. Armed Forces - 219.3; 3. Spartak - 218.25; 4. Zenit - 218.2; 5. Trud - 217.8; 6. Burevestnik - 217.25
V. GOLUBEV, M. SUPONEV, AND S. TOKAREV