Sovetsky Sport. April 14, 1981. LENINGRAD, April 13 (our special correspondent). The 26th USSR Cup in gymnastics has kicked off at the Yubileiny Sports Palace. The men opened the competition. Following the compulsory exercises, Pavel Sut - a native of Minsk - took the lead with a score of 55.95 points.
I can imagine the readers' surprise: who is Pavel Sut? And where are our celebrities? A glance at the technical results reveals that the Olympians are indeed competing - but for the moment, they are not in the leading roles.
We have finally been introduced to the new compulsory program - not particularly difficult overall, yet harboring quite a few "hidden reefs." Our seasoned veterans (and indeed, all the top contenders are competing, with the exception of Alexander Dityatin - who is training for upcoming tournaments on a specialized schedule - and Nikolai Andrianov, who has retired from the sport) were unable to execute flawless routines on all six apparatuses; they suffered falls and errors, leaving the very young competitors - representatives of the "new wave" - to take the lead.
Rumor had it that Alexander Tkachev (Olympic champion, now based in Moscow) was in superb form. Indeed, in certain events, Alexander demonstrated both grace and exquisite precision of execution. Yet his coach, Mikhail Voronin, did not crack a smile once throughout the evening; instead, he merely quipped gloomily: "Well, go on and catch up now, Sashok - you do love playing 'catch-up,' after all."
So what happened? What happened was that Tkachev botched his routine on the very first apparatus - the pommel horse - scoring an 8.75. Next up was Volodya Artemiev, a native of Minsk. The crowd gasped in amazement - a 9.7! Two minutes later, applause rang out once again - Sut had earned a 9.5 on the high bar.
Then Sut stepped into the lead, with Artemiev close behind. This duo was being pursued by Eduard Azaryan, Yuri Korolev, Bogdan Makuts, and Artur Akopyan - but in vain. Azaryan suddenly failed to execute a somersault to handstand on the parallel bars (8.5); Makuts erred on the floor exercise (8.9); and Vladimir Markelov faltered on the pommel horse (8.8).
The results are in. The young generation is in the lead! A brief introduction: Pavel Sut is a 20-year-old from Minsk. He is a second-year student at the Institute of Physical Culture. His coach, Leonid Golyandrin, noted that he selected Pavel for his training group back in the third grade, yet at the time the boy showed no signs of standing out. Nor does he have a long list of major achievements to his name - last year, he took second place at the USSR Youth Cup, finishing just five hundredths of a point behind Yuri Korolev.
TECHNICAL RESULTS
USSR Cup in gymnastics. Men. Compulsory program. 1. P. Sut (Red Star, Minsk) - 55.95; 2. V. Artemiev (Dinamo, Minsk) - 55.85; 3. A. Tkachev (Dinamo, Moscow) and Yu. Korolev (Spartak, Vladimir) - 55.55; 5. B. Makuts (Army, Lvov) and A. Akopyan (Labor Reserves, Yerevan) - 55.45; 7. V. Markelov (Army, Moscow) - 55.4; 8. E. Azaryan (Army, Yerevan) - 55.25;9. S. Baranov (Burevestnik, Vladimir) - 54.7; 10. S. Khizhnyakov (Army, Rostov-on-Don) - 54.65.
Team standings. 1. Army 1 - 390.95; 2. Dinamo 1 - 328.3; 3. Profsoyuz 1 - 324.4
V. GOLUBEV