Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Elena Shushunova, European, World and Olympic Champion 1984-1988, has died of pneumonia, reports TASS.  'Shusha', perhaps the greatest artistic gymnast, was only 49. She will be greatly missed and we will remember her with awe and love.RIP.   http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.com/2015/08/elena-shushunova-grace-power-complexity.html Shusha BB -  https://youtu.be/EQPUDGoLucc Shusha FX -  https://youtu.be/EQPUDGoLucc Shusha UB -  https://youtu.be/yLSwcPgBNw0 Shusha V -  https://youtu.be/aUC7DjWfZuQ

Once upon a time, there were six little girls ... The little girls became gymnasts, and the gymnasts became Champions - but never Olympic Champions. Politics got in the way. 'Their' Olympics, the 1984 Los Angeles Games, disappeared as their country boycotted the Games for political reasons. History vanished. They became a lost Olympic generation. Irina Baraksanova Tatiana Frolova Natalia Ilienko Olga Mostepanova Natalia Yurchenko There was one exception. Elena Shushunova went on to compete at a second Olympics, becoming All Around champion at the Seoul Games in 1988 The 'little gymnasts' (in fact they were extraordinary athletes) competed at the Oloumoc Friendship Games instead of the Olympics. At these Friendship Games, Olga Mostepanova became Champion in the AA, Floor, Vault and Beam, scoring an unequalled total of 40 in the All Around; a level of perfection never seen before or since. There is very little video of this competition...

Elena Shushunova was born on 23 April 1969 in St Petersburg, home of 1980 Olympic Champions Elena Davydova and Alexander Detiatin.  The 1985 World and European Champion, and 1988 Olympic  Champion was coached by Viktor Gavrichenkov, who went on to lead Natalia Ziganshina to a World overall silver medal in 2001, and who served briefly as National coach of the Russian women's team. Her career spanned two different eras of gymnastics, each symbolic of their times.  Her earliest international competitions as a junior (1981/2) showed Shushunova to be a daring trickster, typical of the generation of female gymnasts who emerged in the late 70s and early 80s - tiny acrobats, technicians with dynamite.  Later in her career, especially by the time of the Olympics in 1988, her technical prowess was enhanced by an expressive presence that positioned her firmly in the next generation of artist-acrobats who dominated the sport to 1992.  Drawing on what Gavrichenkov described ...

It had somehow escaped my attention that yesterday was the birthday of two Olympic Champions from Moscow, 1980 - Alexander Detiatin and Elena Davydova.  Happy Birthday to both of these amazing gymnasts! Alexander Detiatin had competed at the Olympics in Montreal in 1976 as part of the Soviet Union's plan to begin to challenge the unbeatable Japanese team.  National coach Leonid Arkayev had faith in him as one of a new generation of ambitious young men, and his plans first came to fruition with a gold in the team event in the 1979 World Championships, the USSR's first since 1958.  Detiatin also made his mark, taking first in the all around competition.  His victory here asserted his leadership of the Soviet team, an incredible feat considering his team mates included such legends as Nikolai Andrianov and Alexander Tkachev.   Then in 1980, he became an international legend when he won the Olympic all around title. Like Detiatin, Elena Davydova was one ...

1988 Olympic all around champion Elena Shushunova and silver medallist Daniela Silivas on the podium in Seoul In truth it was the last big showdown of women's Olympic artistic gymnastics.  For those of us watching at home in London on our TV screens, in the wee small hours (2 or 3 am by memory) of Friday September 23rd, a gymnastics drama unfurled.  The main actors in the play - talented Romanian, Daniela Silivas, and her fierce Soviet rival, Elena Shushunova.   Bit parts were played by the defending World Champion, Aurelia Dobre, only recently recovered from a serious knee injury, and the up and coming Godess of gymnastics, Svetlana Boguinskaia.   At the Rotterdam World Championships barely a year before, all four gymnasts had seen an overturning of gymnastics' status quo as the deep and exciting Romanian team defeated the expected champions, the Soviet Union.  Despite Romania's dominance there, Silivas had been wounded as she fell short of gold in the all arou...

You can find the latest edition of the Russian Gymnastics Federation's magazine Gymnastika here . You will find a report on this spring's national championships, an interview with Emin Garibov and a look back on the 1988 Seoul Olympics, amongst other items. The Federation is quite good at providing English language versions of selected articles - I will provide links as and when items become available.

Lupita sent me this link to a beautiful quality video of young Elena Shushunova on the beam in 1982, all beribboned and full of Shushunova's trademark concentration. Shushunova is a legend of the sport - an innovator (just look at that full twisting double back dismount) who combined power with great fluidity and harmony (that arabesque was peerless throughout her career). Her artistry on floor belied the idea that a gymnast needs to be slender and long to have good line, and her expression went beyond a big smile to encompass something more - the 'emotional depth' her coach, Viktor Gavrichenkov, referred to at one point. She was World, European and Olympic all around Champion, World Cup champion, and World Student Games Champion (winning all five golds in the form of her life in 1986). She contributed something new to all four pieces of apparatus, and evolved visibly throughout her career. One day, I will publish something substantial about Shushunova that can ...

I should be writing some important work this afternoon but instead find myself drifting off to the Olympics ... past, as well as present.  I am a little disappointed not to be able to see the Russians fight for gold at my home Olympics at last ... but never mind.  Let's remember some of the greatest Olympians ever, and hope for the golden tradition to be continued in 2012. 1952 - Marina Gorokhovskaya on uneven bars (she took silver on this apparatus, but was the all around champion) You may well love the interesting techniques she uses here. Look for the enthusiastic audience participation too! Watch it on Youtube . 1956, 1960 and 1964 - Larissa Latynina on floor She's so languid. In 1956, it was the Latynina and Keleti show, with Latynina winning the all around and sharing the gold on floor with her Hungarian rival. In 1960 Latynina held onto both the all around and floor golds, keeping the gold in 1964 but being beaten to the all around title by the glamorous Ve...