Sovetsky Sport. October 28, 1970. In the morning, the head coach of our team, L. S. Latynina, told the girls: "In the finals you will have it more difficult than ever. Gymnastics all over the world has grown so much that there will be no more easy victories. Get ready for the fight." And indeed, in each of the four finals, where world championship medals were played out on individual apparatus, even hundredths of a point decided success.
K. Janz (GDR) was the first to vault. Her preliminary score was 9.65, the same as Turischeva and Burda. Janz is one of the world's best performer of the popular 'bend-unbend' vault. She performed it clearly and, unlike previous years, with a distant first phase - 9.65. However, she didn't land very accurately and in the second vault she corrected this mistake and gained another 0.05 more.
E. Zuchold, the leader on this apparatus, comes out. The leader remains in the lead, performing the same vault as Janz. Zuchold pikes more, straightens out more sharply, and flies a little further. 9.7 -the same score, but it is almost certain that no one can catch up with her. With a result of 19.45, she wins the gold medal, her first that evening.
Burda performed the most difficult vault in the final, twisting a total of 270 degrees. For her originality, the judges forgave her for minor landing errors - 9.65. The same score was given to Turischeva, who in a 'bend-unbend' flew with outstretched arms like a bird. Alas, she took a tiny step on the landing both times. So, Janz got silver, and our girls both earned bronze.
Turischeva performed the warm-up on the uneven bars very seriously and responsibly. Her extremely rich routine, decorated with the Burda twirl - an arc with a rotation of 540 degrees, which Lyuda now performs, perhaps a little better than the author, immediately captivated the audience. In addition, her preliminary score, 9.75, was the same as Janz's. During her performance, Turischeva was good and agile, but she stumbled a little after the final pirouette. These half steps may have cost her first place, since Janz, who competed before her, had 9.8 - 0.1 more - for her smooth routine with a dismount off the hips. Voronina took third place.
In the balance beam finals, the best chances were given to Zuchold (preliminary score - 9.5) and Japanese M. Matsuhisa, who was behind her by only 0.025. Their performances reflected the trend of development of modern routines on the balance beam with its (if I may say so) extreme poles. The dynamic, nicely composed routine of the GDR athlete was equipped with a large number of difficult turns, the most complicated of which was 720 degrees. Zuchold didn't have any back handsprings, but it turned out that they were not needed. Matsuhisa feels confident on the 'first floor' - on the beam, and extremely insecure - on the 'second floor.' She had two flick flacks. She lost her balance after the first one, and after the second, when she dismounted, she simply fell. Zuchold got a 9.7 and won her second gold medal (19.2).
The American K. Rigby was second (19.05), and the bronze was shared by the GDR athlete K. Janz and our L. Petrik.
The end of the night was ours - Soviet, Russian. And this is not only because all three steps of the podium were taken by our athletes. Both Matsuhisa and Janz performed their routines to Russian melodies. Unfortunately, failure awaited Burda in her Toccata - at the end of the second diagonal, Lyuba awkwardly performed a blanche and fell on her back.
But then there was complete success. The new all-around world champion looked proud, courageous, and cheerful. 9.85 - 19.65 and another gold medal. Voronina captivated with her amazingly high blanches and the exquisite spice of her Oriental Dance, and when at the end she extended her palms forward with a touching gesture, 9.75 fell into them. 19.375 - bronze. And 'for starters' the charming Karaseva, with her fiery Russian dance, earned herself a silver, a metal that suits her blonde hair. 9.8 and 19.525.
Congratulating the three winners and their coaches, we cannot help but note that the director of all the prize-winning floor exercises, candidate of chemical sciences A. Selezneva, shared success with them. The musical arrangement of these floor routines belongs to the composer E. Vevrik, who perfectly accompanied the athetes that evening.
So, the finals brought the Soviet team a gold, two silver, and five bronze medals - plus those that had already been won.
V. GOLUBEV