Sovetsky Sport. March 29, 1974. Fourteen-year-old Lidia Gorbik, a Minsk schoolgirl, won the top prize - the amber beam - at the Riga-72 international gymnastics competition. Our other athlete, 16-year-old Nelli Kim from Chimkent, fought with her until the end. On the last apparatus, the uneven bars, Kim needed 9.6 to win and 9.55 to catch up with her opponent. Her result was 9.5 and Gorbik ended 0.05 ahead.
Kim is already known to us - last year she won the first stage of the USSR Cup. Her program includes the Korbut salto on beam, the Burda twirl on uneven bars, and a double twist on floor. Her current floor exercise routine looks lovely.
What did Lida Gorbik do to win? By the way, the Belarussian gymnasts have already won three of the four Riga tournaments: Tamara Lazakovich in 1971 and Olga Korbut in 1972. This is what Gorbik's series looks like - is she worthy?
She is making her debut in adult competitions. In general, in more or less big competitions, she is competing for only the third time.
During the warm-up for the first apparatus (beam) she repeatedly fell on a front aerial. And in the warm-up before the decisive apparatus (uneven bars) she also couldn't really do anything. Her coach Viktor Khomutov wandered about, not looking at the platform, hoping and hoping. I later asked him how he comforted her. He looked at me with furious eyes - it was he, the fit and self-confident Khomutov - and said that he had scolded her. "How exactly did I scold her? I don't remember."
It can be understood. Last yer, he became a Merited Coach of the USSR because he raised the Olympic champion Antonina Koshel. But sweet, kind Tosha Kohel was only the sixth gymnast and the 'table setter' of the Olympic team. Khomutov has not yet achieved what Dmitriev and Knysh - celebrities - have achieved. His demeanor is crown prince. There has been talk about Lida Gorbik for two or three years now, that she is a talent, that she has a lot of promise. And here it is - the season of the world championships, Lidochks'a first senior season. And she has to prove herself.
What is she, what's in her cap?
She comes out on to the floor, the first chords of Frandkin's music sounds, and softly, gently, melodiously, naively and at the same time skillfully, she takes her first pose: a swan, although in general, she is still a duckling. You know, for a long time it was not so that she immediately took over one's soul. I thought - all of a sudden it could only be a subjective sensation, all of a sudden it's wishful thinking. I checked myself: I asked Natasha Kuchinskaya and Olga Karaseva - they were also taken by her soul, because the girl's sense of movement is strong and poetic. Here, you don't notice that in the routine, which was very successfully compiled by Galina Savarina, the acrobatics are not extra-class. Acrobatics is something that can be acquired, but what Gorbik has comes from nature.
In general, Lida Gorbik has decent routines with quite decent difficulty, and she performs them with taste. One can feel in her a kind of gymnastics aristocracy, a 'species,' as Karaseva said.
The nice girl is growing up, and I think the Belorussian school will not be ashamed of her. Although it's scary to over-praise in advance, as was the case with Nina Dronova who, for many reasons (both objective and subjective) has so far shown much less than she promised. Now Lida's future depends on the wisdom and patience of Viktor Khomutov. By the way, a representative of the Belorussian school finished in third - the small, strong, and bouncy Lyuda Savina, a pupil of Lyubov Miromanova. Remember how much this republic has already given to our women's gymnastics: Volchetskaya, Alekseeva, Petrik, Lazakovich, Korbut, Koshel - and now these girls. What wonderful coaches raised them. I recently had a chance to visit a boarding school in Minsk, and I saw how seriously and thoughtfully the work is being done there. Traditions are great things, if they are carefully and lovingly maintained.
So, in the two-stage spring tournament in Moscow and Riga, we competed with two different squads. Grozdova won there, and Gorbik won here. All new names. The season is just beginning, but extreme difficulties are already predicted for the head coach of the national team Larisa Latynina. It will be difficult for her to complete a team for the world championship - again, the choice is very rich. However, any head coach of any national team can only envy such difficulties.
TECHNICAL RESULTS
March 27. Women. Optional program. 1. Gorbik (URS) - 37.8 (9.4, 9.4, 9.45, 9.55); 2. Kim (URS) - 37.75 (9.3, 9.5, 9.55, 9.4); 4. Savina (URS) - 37.55 (9.2, 9.45, 9.5, 9.4); 4. Gayner (USA) - 36.8; 5. Stodulkova (TCH) - 36.4; 6. Sabau (ROM) - 36.25 ... 8. Parshintseva (URS) - 36.1
S. TOKAREV