The State of Gymnastics - 'Soviet' or 'American' style?

Lioudmilla Tourischeva, 1972 Olympic All Around champion in artistic gymnastics, was held up as an example of the ideal Soviet citizen.  Here she coaches one of the Soviet Union's leading gymnasts from the 1980 Olympics, Natalia Shaposhnikova

The Soviet Union had a genius for lifting sport beyond the textbook, injecting the aesthetic where previously only goals had been in plain view.   This was not only manifest in gymnastics.  Do you remember the ‘Russian Five’, the players who elevated ice hockey to a creative sporting display, mesmerising their opponents and spectators with intricate patterns of play, so rhythmic and entertaining that they could have been set to music?   In gymnastics, a sport where the aesthetic counted as much as the outcome, it was this ability to create spectacle out of competition that resulted in the most extraordinary athletic performances.  The ‘Golden Era’, most commonly understood to cover the years from 1952-1992, was a time when the Soviet Union women’s team generally dominated the sport of gymnastics both competitively and in the popular imagination.  During the latter years of this era, their male gymnasts also found a leading place in the sport.  Since the breakdown of the Soviet Union, however, a different competitive dynamic has led to the globalised development of gymnastics as an altered sporting form, one where artistry matters less and substance matters more.   

I have been asked to comment on what the main differences are between ‘Soviet’ and ‘American’ gymnastics.  In this article I will attempt to provide as concise an understanding of my perceptions of this complex question as I can.  Later, I will consider the process of change and its outcomes in terms of the form of the sport practiced today.  To begin with, however, I will outline some of the general and more recent history, in order to contextualise the question.

Gymnastics goes back to the time of the Ancient Greeks.  It is only relatively recently that the globalised phenomenon of artistic gymnastics has emerged and become popularised, by means of the mass media and, in the case of the Soviet Union, a political imperative.  Artistic gymnastics is not the only competitive form of this sport, which has its origins in display, recreational, health and fitness and military.  Rhythmic gymnastics, acrobatics and trampoline are all contested at World and European level.   Each branch of the sport is in a constant state of flux. 

When we speak of the ‘American’ and ‘Soviet’ eras we are in fact describing globalised forms of the sport predominant during the Soviet and post-Soviet eras rather than nationally delineating a competition between the two countries.  The words 'American' and 'Soviet' are used here as labels to loosely describe a particular form of the sport.  The choice of words indicates some of the power dynamics prevalent during the different eras of the sport.  Just as Soviet gymnastics became globalised during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, so has 'American' gymnastics gradually been embraced by the world since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.  Gymnastics produced by America during the Soviet era and by Russia during the American era are equally influenced by the predominant sporting form of the time.  (I use Russia as an example here as they are the main inheritors of the Soviet Union’s sporting legacy.)  We are essentially speaking of two different sporting forms that have evolved from the same tradition, but which are responding to different conditions.

If I were to oversimplify the differences between the two sporting forms into a few words, I would say that American gymnastics is an athletic sport, while Soviet gymnastics was an aesthetic form of physical culture.  In one case the athletes execute gymnastic and acrobatic moves with the aim of maximising their score, while in the latter the gymnasts perform whole routines with the aim of presenting an aesthetic to impress judges.  It is about artistry, or the lack of artistry.  More about this later.  If I were to analyse in more depth, I would add that differences are manifest in the composition of routines, the manner of performance and in the methods of marking.  There are processes by which this change has taken place, and there is an outcome.  The influences which have driven this change are multifactorial.  There are multiple perceptions of the way that these changes have influenced the sport.  There is little that is simple and brief about the question : ‘what are the differences?’.  But I will attempt to outline here, hopefully briefly, some of the things that I consider to be important. 

My regular readers are not expecting me to give a glowing account of ‘American’ gymnastics when they ask me for my opinion.  I am widely known to have bewailed the loss of a certain artistry in contemporary gymnastics.  But perhaps in 'American' gymnastics we are seeing a return to the more instrumental roots of gymnastics as a construct of sporting competition, one where measurement of goals counts more than judgement of performance.  Rather than losing a dimension of the sport that was present in past ‘editions’ we possessed something special and unique during the 'Soviet' era that sat outside the boundaries of what has historically and what is currently accepted as ‘sport’.  In fact the more I consider it, the more I think that the ‘Soviet’ era was an anomaly in gymnastics’ and sports history for its imaginative interpretation of what sport could be.  We will never travel backwards in time to that era again, because the public imagination of sport revolves around goals, targets and start values and those can’t be the entire picture when judgement of artistry and performance are concerned.  

Gymnastics is different to other sports and needs a very particular environment to thrive as an artistic entity  It is one of the very few sports where the very substance of movements counts, as well as the outcome of those movements (imagine Leicester City receiving a score for the aesthetic of their football, as well as for the goals they score).  In this sense, gymnastics was tailor made for the Soviet Union, whose concept of physical culture (today rather disappointingly demoted to signify ‘health and fitness’) at one time provided an ethical and aesthetic framework within which sport sat.  In this sense, sport went beyond the physical into the spiritual domain, expressing the best and highest endeavour of the human, who became superhuman in his efforts to overcome the physical constraints of space and time.  Physical culture and sport thus became a cipher for the Soviet work ethic, a symbol of their moral invincibility in the wider world and a role model for ordinary Soviet citizens labouring in their workplace.  Gymnastics directly fit the paradigm of physical culture because of its scope for mass participation as well as its capacity to demonstrate the aesthetic, spiritual and physical superiority of its athletes.  I am not interpreting physical culture literally when I add that gymnastics learned from an association with the Russian influence of dance and circus.  The Soviet Union used gymnastics to express and communicate something about the best of their culture.  In so doing, regardless or perhaps because of their political exigencies, they created something unique and memorable.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the idea of physical culture became less important, and investment in sport inevitably collapsed.  It is a moot point whether the globalisation of gymnastics which has come in its wake is contingent upon a political vacuum, growing market interests in the power of sport to make money, or the mass migration of sports specialists and coaches from the Soviet Union.  Arguably the declining interest in sport as physical culture set the ideological conditions for a return to a simpler interpretation of sport.   As time passed, the IOC became more interested and concerned to show transparency in sports judging and diversity in sports participation.  If the FIG wanted artistic gymnastics to remain as an Olympic sport, it was certainly driven to make some of the changes that have resulted in the overwhelming power of ‘American’ gymnastics as a sporting form, if not the USA as the leading country in competition.  It is true to say that USA has the best, most vigorous sporting infrastructure for gymnastics.  They are organised and ambitious.  They lobby, they speak the globalised language of sport and they have understood the concerns of the IOC.  Thus America has grabbed the initiative and their gymnasts have become leaders.  In that sense, the USA can effect the direction in which the sport develops and that is why we have the label ‘American gymnastics’.

If artistry and the absence of artistry are central to the argument of the differences between 'Soviet' and 'American' gymnastics, then I do have to return to this theme, which I have already written about extensively on this blog.  It is timely for me to do so, as I have had some second thoughts about it since my last article.  I have been frustrated when artistry has been pigeon holed to ideas of ‘toe point’, ‘line’ and ‘ballet’, when consideration of its merits has been limited to a discussion of women’s floor exercise.  The narrow use of choreography as a description of dance work on floor and the designation of dance as spins, leaps, turns, and connecting elements, listed in the Code of Points, are all lost opportunities when artistry is so much an integral quality of all gymnastics work.  Gymnastics is about whole routines, not individual elements, and originality comes from free creativity, not picking movements out of a guidebook.

The differences are expressed eloquently by the semantic.  For example, words such as accuracy, execution and difficulty are dominant in gymnastics’ vocabulary today; yesterday, we spoke more of virtuosity, complexity and harmony.  These differences in the way that the sport is described have a tangible effect on the way that the sport is constructed and the way that it is perceived.   Accuracy, execution and difficulty all describe tangible entities that make up a gymnastics score.  Virtuosity, complexity and harmony are all intangible ideas that, when translated into gymnastics action, can capture the public imagination and influence judges’ scores. 

Gymnastics exists on a spectrum from accuracy to virtuosity.  The current Code values accuracy, a quality that the Americans value highly in their work.  Soviet gymnastics, meanwhile, valued virtuosity, a quality of going beyond the textbook to perform a whole routine with consummate ease.  Let’s think of artistry as a construct of the aesthetic that marries the explosive energy of acrobatics, grace and a quality of time and effortless, well delineated movement in the air, and something intangible that the gymnast expresses within the movement.  Complexity comes from the whole routine as much as from the individual elements, and originality equally is expressed as the routine.  Artistic gymnastics as a movement had all of this virtuosity during the Soviet era, that is now missing from the American era, when accuracy and the execution of individual elements and connections is of primary importance.  This is what the Code of Points demands; there is no leeway for the gymnast who makes errors, or who has a low difficulty score.  Equally, there is little scope for the gymnast who goes beyond the textbook to score extra points.  The consummate artist who performs whole routines rather than the athlete who picks individual elements from the Code to maximise the value of his routines is the difference between Soviet and American era gymnastics.  The difference is about whether sport is a branch of physical culture, or whether gymnastics is a branch of sport.  At present, sport is winning.

I have finished for now, but there is just one further anomaly I would like to discuss  – Simone Biles.  For, although Simone is an American gymnast, both in terms of her birth and her style, she is one who performs her routines with virtuosity, in particular her floor and vault exercises.  I am speaking not of a quality of toe point or line, for these are distinct weaknesses in Simone’s approach, but of the consummate ease and enjoyment by which she presents her original brand of gymnastics.  For this reason and this reason only I suspend my disappointment in the American style.  Simone is as unique in her approach to gymnastics as the whole of the Soviet Union once was.  She will win big in Rio and I am looking forward to seeing her make history there.  If, once upon a time, the Soviet Union led the rest of the world, now today America has the lead, and Russia is part of the rest of the world that is trying to catch up.  I suppose that is sport. 

Additional reading :

A timeline of Soviet sporting history - http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/a-timeline-of-soviet-olympic-history.html

Is gymnastics still Russian? - http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/is-gymnastics-still-russian-post.html

Women’s artistic gymnastics at a turning point - http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/is-gymnastics-still-russian-post.html

The State of the Art – gymnastics in 2013 - http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/the-state-of-art-gymnastics-in-2013.html

The Russian perspective - a picture blog - http://www.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/zolotiedevushki/518682.html

Olga Strazheva, Soviet Union (Ukraine) : 1989 World Championships, FX







Simone Biles, USA : 2015 AT&T Cup, FX