Sovetsky Sport. December 31, 1981. In early December our gymnasts returned from Japan, fron the international Chunichi Cup tournament, where many participants of the world championship that recently ended in Moscow had performed. I called coach Boris Georgievich Orlov and asked: "How did Olya feel in her new role of world champion?" Orlov cheerfully replied: "You know, I just didn't expect the Japanese to have such enthusiastic audiences. Bicherova and the other gymnasts were received so well! And my student is happy. She wasn't disappointed. Some inspiration descended on her..."
Boris told me what scores she had received, and I remember the events of the end of November.
Who could have imagined that Olenka Bicherova, the debutante of the world championship, would win the highest title on the platform of the Olimpiisky Indoor Stadium?! At first, Orlov was glad that Olya got into the team at all. After all, there were so many disputes and doubts: Bicherova, as they say, is not yet stable; in the spring at the European Championships she made so many mistakes that she finished in 23rd place...
Her performance at the Olimpiisky was delightfully playful! The little girl with rosy cheeks was so natural on the platform, free and direct, that the impression of airiness of performance was created. Can we call eighth-grader Bicherova a gymnastics artist? Perhaps it's already possible, because her program is difficult and balanced, emotional and eccentric (what is worth, for example, Cuervo's vault with a twist of 540 degrees, performed for the first time in the world!). And in these compositions, first of all, thoughtfulness and striving for perfection in the smallest details are felt. No wonder the choreographer Galina Savarina and the accompanist Irina Khramenkova chose the music of I. Dunaevsky from the film Seekers of Happiness: the optimistic melody encourages action and the search for true harmony.
The coach and student are looking for this harmony meaningfully, empathizing. Watching their training at CSKA means participating in their joint design work, where the chief engineer is the coach.
Thirty-six-year-old Boris Orlov, a Master of Sports in acrobatics, who even won silver medals at the national championships, suffered a severe injury, knew the Code of the highest skills (he was for some time the coach of gymnasts on the USSR national acrobatics team), and decided one day to start an 'independent' coaching life. While at Spartak, at a sports school in Leningradskoe Shosse, he recruited his first group, and his little girls took classes with interest - he came up with all sorts of fun acrobatic jumps on the tumbling track. Tiny Olya Bicherova, who was 'discovered' by coach Tamara Cherneva and who studied a little with the famous mentor Vladimir Shelkovnikov, was tormened with doubts even then - should she continue to go to figure skating and stop doing gymnastics?
On the day of the world championship final, I asked Boris Orlov about Bicherova. To my surprise, the coach willingly started talking and, with a smile, told me in great secrecy that Anatoly Sergeevich and Lyubov Vasilievna, electronic engineers whom Olya forbade to come to the competitions, were 'hiding' from their daughter in the stands of the Olimpiisky stadium ("so that they don't worry"). But whose parental heart can withstand this ban?
In general, on that happy day, Olya was cheerful and sociable as always. She woke up in the morning, and on the balcony of the first floor of the hotel (our gymnasts stayed at the Round Lake base near Moscow) a fluffy cat was already waiting for her. Olya fed it and then played with it so much that she was almost late for training. After dinner, everyone walked through the autumn-cold forest. She saw a frozen frog on the path, felt bad for it, and took it to her room to warm it up.
Olga loves nature. She has flora and fauna in her stamp collection. And for the sake of mushrooms, Olya and her mother and father travel many kilometers to the village of Natalinka, right near the city of Taldom, to her seventy-year-old grandfather Yegor Stepanovich.
An excellent student at School No. 694 in the Leningradsky district of Moscow, Olga Bicherova became an excellent student of the world championships. And the December success in Japan is a logical continuation of this.
V. GOLUBEV