Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

  This story of a 'new girl' on the talented Soviet women's gymnastics team, just prior to the 1968 Olympics, hardly needs to be presented as a fictional drama.  The coach, as in all these films, is tall, dark and handsome, with a brooding sense of being in control of all he surveys, but that's where the fiction ends.  Whoever did the casting for this film had an incredible talent for finding Soviet gymnast lookalikes, and I won't need to tell you who was who in the plot, as it's perfectly obvious.  The only one I'm unsure of is Novenkaya, the new girl, herself.  I think it's Natalia Kuchinskaya, but I'm not completely sure, because the Director of this film has cut the timeframe about a little bit. The members of the squad depicted here are a young Tamara Lazakovitch (no sign of the whisky yet, but very spirited), Ludmilla Tourischeva, who is sweetly played as a smiling but very serious young woman, Larissa Petrik, Olga Karasova, Polina Astakhova (...

The success of the Soviet Union women was not founded on reliability. Most of their World and European Champions suffered errors en route to their notable victories. Yurchenko was notorious for her unpredictability pre-1982; Shushunova fell twice on bars in qualifications during the 1985 World Championships; Davydova’s gold at the Moscow Olympics was a surprise, given her error rate at previous competitions. Often, it was the most beautiful Soviets who were the least competitive: Ilienko and Shaposhnikova were stunningly erratic. Behind them stood a whole army of astonishing but competitively inept aspiring World Champions, many of them well known but who never made World Champion teams: Groshkova, Priakhina, Shkoda, Mysnik. The entire history of Soviet gymnastics is littered with brilliant, but unpredictable startlets. Their teams were no less likely to win because of it. We were no less in their awe because of it. A certain degree of unreliability – risk - was expected if...

Cor.  When I began this blog, only a couple of months ago, I never realised quite how much goes on in the constantly evolving world of Russian gymnastics.  I started out by wanting to look back to try to make some sense of what might be happening now and in the future.  As it turns out, current events are enough to keep me occupied, although I expect - jolly well hope - there will be some fallow weeks and months when I will get the chance to be more reflective again. The internet has opened up gymnastics amazingly.  I can remember when every speck of information I could gain about the Soviet gymnasts was precious.  We had to wait months for the results of even the largest competitions.  I remember, for example, tuning into the BBC World Service at midnight to hear the results of the women's all around at the 1985 World Championships, only to disbelieve the report I had heard (Shushunova tied Omelianchik) and to have to wait another few days for highlights...