Ludmilla Tourischeva, the past and present of gymnastics, artistry, and more

I responded to a question on Gymternet Clan on Facebook recently; which gymnasts did you see in competition first?  Being rather old, my reply was that at the 1976 Soviet Display at Wembley, I was lucky enough to see Ludmilla Tourischeva, Nelli Kim and Olga Korbut. 

Quite a heady memory, and one that for some unknown reason sent me in search of Chopin's Nocturne, 9-2, a piece of music that always reminds me of the deep, emotional and expressive Tourischeva.  She is the standout for me these days.  At the age of 16, Korbut's pyrotechnics appealed more.  Olga is still beautiful, very special, but somehow Ludmilla's gentle, complex gymnastics come from somewhere more intense and soulful, closer to me, these days.

I haven't posted enough recently, having been busy at a Conference on Cultural Tourism in the Digital Era, in Athens, where as well as listening to and questioning others on their interesting research in this topic area, I had the pleasure of presenting my own paper with my University of Greenwich colleague Jithendran Kokkranikal, on the nature of artistic gymnastics as a sport tourism product in the Russian Federation. 

There was one thing that really hit me in the middle of the forehead, the morning after delivering our paper; that is, how much artistic gymnastics is part of Russian cultural heritage, and how much of Russia there is in artistic gymnastics' cultural heritage.  I suppose that this is one of the assumptions that guides every little bit of my work on this blog so far, but something I haven't really explored or hammered home explicitly, in a great deal of depth.  It is something that is fundamental to my views on why gymnastics could play a role in tourism in Russia, not just as a sport tourism product but also more widely in destination image formation, and in the development of a positive national identity. 

The elephant in the room is of course the former Soviet Union's political influence on the shape of the sport and the West's corresponding attempts to discredit it.  So much of the press coverage the sport obtained during the 'Golden Years' was negative, criticising WAG in particular as child labour, dangerous to health and artificial.  There were widespread allegations of drug use that have never been proved. 

These viewpoints cannot be ignored.  They can still be levelled at most forms of elite sport, especially those that require early specialisation.  The risks and demands of the sport remain the same, but the narrative has changed and press coverage in the West today is far more positive.  The popular appeal of gymnastics as a participation sport, a sport in which practice makes perfect and where a good solid work ethic pays off, gives it a strong moral edge that Middle America in particular loves.  Inconceivable grace and artistry from a mysteriously inaccessible culture once defined gymnastics, but it has now been replaced by something more tangible and 'age appropriate' that every American teenager can aspire to.  More's the pity, considering the way the sport looks these days.

Of course in the Soviet Union media coverage painted a narrative of the sport's champions as 'heroes', often recovering from the social disadvantages of poverty or illegitimate birth, overcoming personal obstacles to progression such as a stubborn nature or prickly temperament.  Sport as physical culture was considered to be vital in the development of human spirit, health, and community and international relations.  The divide between Western cynicism of the Soviet 'sports machine' and the East's view of sport as something closer to spirituality, social cleansing and international relations couldn't have been more obvious.  I prefer the latter definition.  Perhaps the Soviet Government did want to exploit sport to create a positive (false?) image of its society under Communism, but at the end of the day the athletes and their coaches just went out there, showed us gymnastics of the highest order, created sporting legends on the podium and made friends on the ground. 

The recent Ukraine crisis has made me more aware than ever of how media is manipulated on both sides of the divide to leverage feelings of nationalism.  My lifelong fascination with gymnastics from Russia and the former Soviet Union has made me feel that you can't really judge and can only take people as you find them.  Gymnastics brought me closer to people I might only otherwise have known through the headlines.  Through long term involvement with sport, we eventually see the lives of real people and not just a representation created for political purposes. 

Sadly, the West's suspicion and cynicism towards Soviet and Russian culture still remains.  For some, as national MAG coach Valery Alfosov said recently, it still remains a 'badge of honour' to defeat the Russian team, almost as though Soviet domination of the sport (which demised some twenty years ago) has tainted the world view of the Russian contribution to the sport, and as though Russia and the former Soviet Union's contribution to the sport technically and aesthetically wasn't (almost) thoroughly positive, both in its former lifestage as an artistic sport and in its current lifestage as an athletic one.  In some corners, there are attempts to erase Russia and the former Soviet Union's contribution to the development of the sport by downplaying coaches' contribution to the growth of newly successful programmes.

I really do believe that WAG has hit rock bottom artistically and technically speaking recently, and that the sport's current lack of photogenic appeal is resulting in poor audience levels, both in person and online, that are being seen widely across Europe (the UEG recently commented on this).  While I am deeply disappointed by the direction that WAG has taken recently, however, I am less than perplexed about the longer term prospects of a recovery and restitution of better artistic standards, even though I don't think we'll ever see the likes of the 'Golden Era' again. 

Gymnastics has always been in a state of flux, there have always been tensions between the different strands of influence detectable within the sport.  The struggle today, between athleticism and artistry, between participation and elite models, between the influences of East and West, are as fascinating as they ever have been, and all the more so because of the concomitant ideological philosophies that have underpinned the sport at its various stages.  Forty years ago, sport was commodified for policy reasons.  Today, it is more likely to be commodified for economic reasons.  The difference is in world view and the way that society has changed, as much as the small, point-pinching machinations of the WTC and FIG.  Our assumptions affect our world view, the way that we receive the changes recently inherent in WAG, and what we consider to be 'bias' or 'objectivity'.  The FIG has failed totally to take these societal changes on board when considering the nature of the Code of Points and blandly labels its judging 'objective' without a real or proper consideration of the multiple viewpoints or assumptions that inform their perspective.  But the results of their blindness is clearly visible to all - a downgraded sport that lacks appeal.  Eventually something will change.

The interesting thing is that despite the failings evident in WAG, MAG goes from strength to strength; not so much in terms of its popularity, but in the cultural and artistic depth of the work seen.  I really think that men's gymnastics deserves far greater attention than it receives.  While artistry is less explicit within the sport than it is within WAG, the aesthetic is inherent in all the gymnasts do.  There are clear signs of national characteristics - of distinct styles - in the work of teams such as Japan, China and Russia.  I wonder what WAG could learn from MAG?

Well, all of this is a brief brain dump following a very busy period of time, and I would be interested to hear your views, too.  Please do comment as I'm sure there is much you have to say :-).  I'm now going to try to find some time for reflection, to write something deeper about our sport as cultural heritage and develop some plans for further research. 

This post started out as a brief tribute to the work of the beautiful Tourischeva, one of the first gymnasts I ever saw perform live.  Then it turned into something else, a reflection on the last forty years in some ways.   Now I must revert to today.  I find myself thinking of Ludmilla and her team mates who live or have family in Ukraine quite a bit recently as I watch the tragedy there unravel.  I do hope they are all OK. 

Perhaps I should mention here that recently I heard that former Russian and Soviet head coach Leonid Arkayev, whose birthday it was yesterday, welcomed former Soviet gymnast, today a choreographer, Natalia Karamushka, to work at his gym in Saransk.  She needed a safe haven away from the problems at her local gym club in the Ukraine and Leonid offered her a job and a way of escape. 

A moment of simplicity from 1972