Sovetsky Sport. May 21, 1977. The European Women's Gymnastics Championships, held in Prague on May 13-14, vividly reflected the general trends in the development of this sport. The process of making the gymnastics repertoire more difficult is becoming faster and more interesting today, and advanced, more rational techniques for performing difficult elements are becoming more accessible to a wider range of athletes. This process is irreversible, it flows into the general trend of the progress of world sports, moreover the entire life of the current human society, which is daily influenced by the scientific and technological revolution, the rapidly rising curve of discoveries.
Let's remember: almost all the leaders of world gymnastics - Larisa Latynina, Vera Caslavska, Natalia Kuchinskaya, Karin Janz, Lyudmila Turischeva, Olga Korbut, and Nadia Comaneci - showed more difficult and spectacular routines than their rivals when they entered the "big time."
As usual, the beginning of a new four-year period is marked by the appearance of new names, new athletes whose goal is the top of the next cycle, and they, using the discoveries of their predecessors, develop them, seek their own paths, and boldly experiment. At the same time, we often encounter the fact that the leaders of gymnastics of the previous Olympic period, no matter how young they were, due to natural psychological reasons (nervous fatigue, some complacency as a result of noisy fame) to some extent lag behind the pace of their competition, although their well-deserved authority gives a certain inertia to their path to victory.
The above is confirmed by the fact that in Prague - outwardly unexpectedly, but in essence quite naturally - the spectators saw excellent performances and highly difficult routines not only from the representatives of the new generation of traditional "gymnastic powers" (the USSR, Romania, the GDR) - but also from countries such as Norway and Switzerland. This is also confirmed by the fact that today the 16-year-old Soviet gymnast Elena Mukhina, a debutante in a competition of this rank, has led this new generation and has essentially become the worthy leader of the European Championship. The confirmation, finally, is that the all-around champion of Montreal, the wonderful Romanian athlete Nadia Comaneci, with a program that was essentially not updated since last year, did not achieve the title of all-around champion of Europe as easily as before.
In Prague, experts from different countries expressed admiration for the performances of the Soviet athletes and their amazingly difficult exercises. But this progress is not a miracle. It is also natural.
Let's return to the results of the Olympics and even an earlier competition, the 1975 European Championship where, as it is well known, Comaneci won a beautiful victory in the all-around and on three apparatus. At that competition, our specialists clearly saw that our former superiority - above all in difficulty - was lost. Lulled by the remarkable success at the World Championship in Varna, some of our leading coaches decided that the accumulated reserves of strength would be more than enough for several years to come. They overlooked how quickly the gymnasts of Romania, the GDR, Hungary, and other countries were progressing. The best athletes of the European competition in Skien have quite convincingly proved that they have caught up with us in terms of performance skills and consistency. And Comaneci's "secret weapon" then was the greater number of elements of increased difficulty in her repertoire.
A year before the Olympics, the Soviet gymnastics leadership took energetic steps to eliminate the lag. This was already evident in Montreal. It is characteritsic that last year's national youth championship which, by the way, was won by Mukhina, on the whole brought success to those young gymnasts who boldly went on to master a new level of difficulty. Such "fundamental elements" as the double somersault, double twist, "Korbut somersault" and "Korbut loop," the Tsukahara-type vaults and others, many athletes performed not only consistently but also at a high technical level.
Understanding the speed and dynamism of the processes that have engulfed world gymnastics as a whole and the natural increase in the intensity of the struggle, the FIG, whose leadership was renewed at the Congress in Montreal, took a number of cardinal measures to democratize its activities and objectify judging. Thus, for the first time in the history of the FIG, during the European Championship in Prague, the draw of the participants was not closed, but public (in the presence of the public and the press) a month before the competition, on April 12.
A draw is a draw, and not everyone is always happy with the "gifts of fate." Apparently, the numbers pulled out of the drum by two six-year-old Prague girls did not bring any particular pleasure to the Soviet team. Mukhina, Kim, and Filatova were all forced to compete in the first shift, while Comaneci was forced to compete in the second. The psychological law of subjective judging is such that gymnasts performing later always receive higher scores - at least a little bit. However, we repeat, the open and democratic nature of the draw deprived anyone of any grounds to protest, and there were indeed no protests at this point.
Also, for the first time at an official FIG competition, video recording of all performances was used, and the competent appeal jury could, in controversial cases, make the necessary amendments to the judges' decision or prove the unreasonableness of the protest. For example, on the first day of the competition, the leadership of the Romanian delegation filed a protest after Teodora Ungureanu received a low score on the uneven bars (9.65). Having carefully studied the recording, the appeal jury counted 0.6 errors in Ungureanu's performance (therefore, the most accurate score should have been 9.4), but decided to uphold the judges' score.
On the eve of the competition, the system of appointing judges, which has been in effect for decades, was the subject of a number of controversial discussions. As was already reported in the press, at the preliminary press conference, FIG President Yu. Titov gave an exhaustive explanation of the state of affairs: "According to the rules of the competition (item No. 1), re-approved by the Congress in 1975, the appointment of judges is made by decision of the technical committee. Some national federations, including the Soviet one, consider the drawing of lots to be a more democratic way of determining judges. I am of the same opinion. At the assembly of the men's technical committee in Montreal, the proposal was adopted. The women's technical committee did not have time to discuss it. Thus, we are now forced to use the existing regulations although, we must hope, women's gymnastics specialists will consider it necessary to change them at their next assembly."
The constant increase in attention to judging issues in gymnastics is not accidental. The elements being performed are becoming more and more complex, the necessary technique of body control is becoming more and more sophisticated, and the requirements for both the richness of exercises and their execution are becoming more and more stringent. Sometimes not even all specialists clearly understsand the problem of the relationship between form and content on the platform - their theoretical interpretations, developed over many years of practice, do not keep up with the pace of real events. An example of incorrect understanding of what is happening was the episode with the judging of the vault final, in particular.
Kim performed a full-twisting Tsukahara in her first attempt in the final, earning a score of 9.75. In her second attempt, she performed a layout Tsukahara for the first time in an official competiton, earning a score of 9.7. The Soviet team's lead-out coach, Lyudmila Turischeva, filed a protest. The appeal jury reviewed it and, after a meeting with the judges, raised the score to 9.8. Then Comaneci vaulted. For her first attempt, a piked Tsukahara, she received 9.75. After deliberation, the appeal jury increased this score to 9.8. For the second vault, a tucked Tsukahara, Comaneci got 9.7. Unfortunately, there was a mix-up of scores on the scoreboard. But the truth, as recorded in the judges' scorecards, is that the average score from the final plus the preliminary score gave Kim a 0.025 advantage over her opponent and the gold medal.
In order to understand the essence of the events, we will introduce the reader to their technical background. As is known, the vault "sideways somersault with a turn and one and a half back salto," first demonstrated at the 1970 World Championships by the Japanese gymnast Mitsuo Tsukahara and named after him, quickly entered the world repertoire, first for men, then for women. It has been made more difficult, and the chain of modifications, if you look at it in ascending order, looks like this: Tsukahara in a tuck, then piked, then with a full twist (let us recall that in Montreal, for such a vault, which was considered the height of difficulty a year ago, Kim received 10), and then laid out. So far the last one on the women's platform is a record.
It is now completely clear that, given the equally correct execution form of Kim and Comaneci's vaults, the panel of judges was obliged to give preference to the content in their scores, that is, to put Kim ahead from the very beginning. But the team, which included A. Persson (Norway), W. Szlisowska (Poland), E. Kunz (Switzerland) and M. Ramos (Portugal) and led by C. A. Letheren (Canada) was unable to orientate itself, which required the intervention of the jury, which concluded that Kim's second vault should be 9.8
After the results of this event were announced, no one doubted their correctness, both in terms of technique and the logic of the development of the vault. This included the deputy chairman of the women's technical committee M. Simionescu (Romania) and the head of the Romanian delegation, N. Vieru. No written or oral protests were received. The competition continued calmly.
The bewilderment of the 16,000-seat arena, numerous experts, and the participants themselves was even greater when, almost an hour later, during the balance beam competition, Comaneci had already received the highest score of the competition - 10. N. Vieru approached the platform, brought Comaneci and Ungureanu (who had not yet competed) to him and left the arena with them. The confusion was compounded when Comaneci did not come out to receive the gold medal she had won on the balance beam. According to FIG regulations, the medal was awarded to Mukhina who had the second-best score. The Romanian athletes did not take part in the competition anymore - they left the arena.
For two and a half more hours, more than 300 journalists waited for N. Vieru to appear at the final press conference - he promised the head of the press center to personally give the public an explanation of what had happened. But he never showed up. The head of the press center told journalists that, when leaving, Vieru told him: "We do not agree with the current regulations and until they are changed, we refuse to participate in any official competitions under the auspices of the FIG." Foreign colleagues immediately recalled that the current rules, with all their imperfections, did not prevent Comaneci from becoming the all-around European champion in 1975, the Olympic champion in 1976, and now again winning the title of best gymnast on the continent.
In light of the above, one cannot but agree with the point of view of the Czechoslovak newspaper Rude Pravo, which noted that removing a team from the competition is not a way to resolve problematic situations based on subjective opinions, and certainly not a way to influence the results. This unprecedented episode in the history of gymnastics is widely commented on by many foreign press outlets. At the same time, regret is expressed about the impulsive actions of the Romanian delegation. The Associated Press Agency reported an interview with the American floor exercise judge Jackie Fie, who said: "Comaneci found herself in a difficult position. She had to prove to everyone and herself her superiority over athletes from other European countries. She is a very good gymnast, but her competitors have improved a lot - they have achieved and exceeded what she has achieved. There were other Romanian gymnasts in Prague who could have fought for a medal - it's a shame they left the competition. This is bad propaganda for our sport."
The foreign press also published interviews with other experts, showing how far from the truth are the accusations of the championship judging apparatus of biased attitide towards some teams. FIG Secretary Max Bangerter (Switzerland) told a correspondent of the Zurich newspaper Sport that he had not seen a more clearly and beautifully organized championship than in Prague, where excellent conditions were created for the athletes for competition, training, and relaxing.
Taking all this into account, the attack on the organizers and judges undertaken by some Romanian experts and journalists in the press, accompanied by simply offensive terminology, seems strange.
"Gymnastics results cannot be measured with stopwatches, meters and centimeters," writes Rude Pravo. "In the past, mistakes often happened and such outstanding athletes as L. Turischeva, O. Korbut, and others could speak about this. They not only knew how to win, but also to lose with dignity, and this was their strength." You can't help but think about this now when you read how one of the coaches of the Romanian team, supposedly defending a great athlete whose outstanding talent does not need protection, reminds us that Nadia is "an idol of the whole world."
It is sad when an atmosphere of idolatry is created around such a sweet, modest, and hard-working girl. It leads to such rash steps, which are rightly written about by Rude Pravo.
A. SHANIYAZOV, senior coach of the USSR team
S. BLIZNYUK, international editor of Sovetsky Sport
S. TOKAREV, special correspondent of Sovetsky Sport