Sovetsky Sport. October 27, 1974. For the second time in a row, 22-year-old Lyudmila Turischeva again is the world champion. This is a remarkable success of the captain and Komsomol organizer of our country's national team, a member of the Komsomol Central Committee. Prior to Turischeva, Larisa Latynina achieved two-time success on the world platform.
The soon-to-be two-timer sat on the edge of the platform with her head thrown back. Her eyes were closed, the collar of her tight training shirt was to her chin, and her arms were crossed over her chest. Around her, people were walking and talking, music played, and applause thundered.
At that moment, Nina Dronova was flying on the uneven bars exactly to the beat of the floor exercise melody of the graceful Romanian Alina Goreac - even here Nina's musicality affected her. She went through this competition easily and gloriously, everyone liked her, she even liked herself, and hadn't even have time to realize that at sixteen she was seventh in the world. She would have been up in the top six, if not for a few minor mistakes on the balance beam, after which she seemed to kindly apologize to the audience for not getting an outstanding score of 9.95 like Annelore Zinke received for her wonderful routine on the uneven bars.
Turischeva didn't see any of this. And probably Rastorotsky, who was looking only at her, didn't see it either.
Later in the evening we walked with her over to the sea, and the sound of the waves seemed to be like the noise of the arena, and she spoke to me. "You know, we understand each other perfectly, and we would never tell each other a lie - not even the slightest untruth."
Turischeva and Rastorotsky - a perfect example of creative collaboration between athlete and trainer. She truly trusts him. I remember a year ago at a training camp in Leselizde there was a rest day, and she went to Lake Ritsa, relaxed and ate pastries. Later, she had half a kilo extra over her competitive weight, and the next morning, putting on a warm jacket, she ran laps around the stadium. She was tired, and then in training she couldn't land her vault, her current Tsukahara. Rastorotsky gave her a harsh reprimand, and then she said to me: "Of course, Vladislav Stepanovich is right, and I am to blame. Why do we need rest days at all? Rest is boring and harmful, a person must work." On that day, October 7, she turned 21 years old.
She sat with her long eyelashes lowered, and Elya Saadi, having performed a double pirouette, jumped off the beam. Her scores this evening: 9.4, 9.7, 9.7, 9.75. She started the competition nervously, but gathered herself, got angry and became herself: incredibly flexible, but unbending.
At this moment, Turischeva slowly, almost reluctantly, began to warm up. I later asked her what she was thinking. "The bars and beam are behind me now, everything is easier from here on, everything is on the floor. But the main thing is not to let myself think: 'I'm going to mess up now.' The main thing is to pull myself together and concentrate."
The ability to precisely regulate and fine-tune her mental state is a quality that Turischeva possesses like few other female athletes in the world.
Behind her were the uneven bars, on which she confidently twisted all her 'turntables' left and right (9.8), and confidently, with modest dignity, performed her routine on the beam (9.8). Rastorotsky unbuttoned another button on his shirt and said something to Nelli Kim, who was sitting next to him. She receieved a slight leg injury the day before and did not compete in the all-around final.
The angelic-looking Angelika Hellmann, whose classical style suits her perfectly, had already finished her performance of Moonlight Sonata. The bronze medalist of the team championship, she showed outstanding technique combined with a gentle and charming performing style.
Rusudan Sikharulidze had already captivated 3,500 spectators (there were actually more, as the audience sat on the steps, too) with her piercing dark eyes, as she moved across the carpet to the rhythms of a tango. I had never seeen her execute the details of all her routines with such precision as at this championship, and perhaps with such enthusiasm - (9.3, 9.5, 9.7, 9.75) - that's how she performed in the final.
Only once did Turischeca raise her eyes to the platform. She glanced sideways at the bars where Korbut fluttered, and lowered her eyes again."I wanted to get on the floor exercise after Olya finished her routine. You know, she always gets a lot of applause, and this can distract me."
Korbut drew the trajectory of her famous dismount in the air, froze, waved her hands to the audience, and left. Lyuda came out. Sasha Makarov, the team's accompanist, shook his artistic curls with inspiration and played Tchaikovsky's First Concerto.
Turischeva had peformed a different floor routine the day before - her Freedom to Africa. And in the evening by the sea, I asked her why she had changed her routine. "You know, you have to smile with that floor routine, and I wasn't in the mood for smiling but, you know, to triumph."
I remember how she looked as a girl - scared and naive when she first stepped onto the big, adult platform in 1967 during the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR. And what a master she has become, what a skilled competitor, what a truly admirable person she has grown into. I've had to write about this before, and I want to repeat it again: the foundation of Turischeva's clear and direct character is her idealism and patriotism. Do not consider this an exaggeration or mere rhetoric, but Turischeva is perhaps the most merciless towards herself of all the gymnasts I know, not sparing herself not out of ambition, but in the name of high ideals - that's the main point.
Her final apparatus was the vault. She performed a Tsukahara. At that moment, an unsigned envelope with poems, also without a signature, was handed to me in the press box. I never found out who the author was - maybe it was one of our tourists. The verses were called 'Champion's Vault' and ended like this: "...And then, overcoming the trembling - and you can't take your eyes off it! - you soar up, gleaming like a knife, and plunge straight into the heart."
It's a pretty accurate emotional expression of the exact vault in the final attempt, after which the two-time all-around world champion left the podium to shake hands with her coach.
In conclusion, which of our girls will perform in the individual finals? On vault, Turischeva has the best preliminary sum (19.4), Korbut is second (19.2), and Sikharulidze is fourth (18.9). On uneven bars, Korbut has the best preliminary results of 19.55, and Zinke is 0.05 behind her. Turischeva will also perform in this final. Beam: Turischeva has 19.75, Korbut has 19.45, and in sixth are Dronova and Kim (if she can perform). On floor exercise, we have five of our athletes and Hellmann.
For the men, on floor exercise Marchenko is in second after Kasamatsu, with Mikaelyan in fourth. On pommel horse, Andrianov is in second after Kasamatsu. On rings, Andrianov has the best preliminary score together with Romanian D. Grecu (University Games champion on this event). On vault, Andrianov is the best, and he is also the best on parallel bars, sharing the lead with Kasamatsu and Marchenko. We do not have any gymnasts in the high bar final.
TECHNICAL RESULTS
Gymnastics world championships. Varna, 25 October. Women. All-around. Half sum of the compulsory and optional programs, plus finals (scores in brackets). 1. Turischeva (URS) - 78.45 (9.8, 9.8, 9.8, 9.8); 2. Korbut (URS) - 77.65 (9.55, 9.8, 9.7, 9.7); 3. Hellmann (GDR) - 76.875 (9.6, 9.8, 9.6, 9.65); 4. Saadi (URS) - 76.425; 5. Sikharulidze (URS) - 75.4; 6. Zinke (GDR) - 76.325; 7. Dronova (URS) - 76.125; 8. Goreac (ROM) - 75.925; 9. Schmeisser (GDR) - 75.525; 10. Medveczky(HUN) - 75.475
S. TOKAREV