Reconciling artistic past and sporting present – what does the literature disclose?

I was looking through my bookcases last night and thinking that I must, pretty soon, get round to re-organising my library as my work on this blog progresses. Over the past couple of days some new references have come to light, not least an article in the Science of Gymnastics journal by Abie Grossfeld that chronicles the history of American gymnastics. This is timely, especially in view of my recent resurrection of such Soviet classics as Brodsky’s (1987) Soviet Sport: The Success and Ramsey and Khromov’s (1990) Ten Soviet Sports Stars. Grossfeld’s work is surely not the only one on the subject of American gymnastics, but I took the opportunity to skim read them and to compare the styles and content of what are arguably, in addition to historic data, works of self-publicity, self-disclosure and even propaganda.

What struck me first of all were the similarities between Grossfeld’s and Grodsky’s work. Statistical evidence of the various sporting bodies, numbers of participants and so on are provided, with the Soviets making grandifluous claims about the number of people benefitting from engagement in physical culture. The lyrical storytelling of the Soviets immediately strikes a contrast to the more formal chronicling of sporting achievements and listing of new moves performed at particular competitions and so on to be found in Grossfeld’s work. Across sports, Soviet publications were keen to emphasise sport’s contribution to education, the moral advantage of high sporting achievements underpinned by many hours of selfless training, overcoming the pain of injuries, and reaching an almost Zen-like, heightened state of self when achieving the highest sporting accolades.

This very superficial scanning of a lamentably limited range of literature confirms Riordan’s (1977) idea that sport was held to fulfill significantly different roles in the West and in the Soviet Union. There is a significant discordance between these values in as far as gymnastics is concerned, because of the contested state of gymnastics which sits on the cusp of art and sport. Currently, the West appears to hold the upper hand and has emphasised a more athletic model of the sport as opposed to the Soviets’ artistic model of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. It remains to be seen whether Soviet sporting values have survived in Russia over the transition from communism. Can the Russians re-establish a Soviet-esque vision of gymnastics over future decades? Will the sporting political bodies allow this to happen? Or have we lost that particular model forever?

Nellie Kim, current President of the Women’s Technical Committee of the FIG and multiple Olympic and World gold medal winner for the Soviet Union, recently (June 2010) gave an insightful interview to John Crumlish of International Gymnast. It will be interesting to look at that from the perspective of establishing Kim’s own assumptions about the sport, whether they reflect the cultural undertow of her Soviet sporting heritage, and if so how she reconciles them with her current remit.

These are my assumptions and initial thoughts on the shape of the work. A detailed ethnography of a significantly wider variety of sources is required, taking into account the form and purpose of the communication, but that is the work of years.

References

Crumlish, J (2010) 'IG Online Interview: Nellie Kim (Belarus/FIG)' International Gymnast Online, 25th June 2010 accessed at http://www.intlgymnast.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1660:ig-interview-nellie-kim-fig&catid=3:interviews&Itemid=56 accessed 27th September 2010

Grossfeld, A (2010) ‘A History of United States Artistic Gymnastics’ Science of Gymnastics Vol 2 Issue 2 pp 5-28

Ramsey, R W and Khromov, Y G (1990) Ten Soviet Sports Stars Boston, MA: Branden Publishing Co Inc

Timofeyev, A and Kopytkin, Y (1987) (eds) Soviet Sport: The Success Story Moscow: Raduga Publishers