Sovetsky Sport. September 25, 1981. MINSK, 24 September (our special correspondents). On the second day of the USSR Championships in gymnastics, women's teams competed in the compulsory program. The national team of the Russian Federation was more successful than other teams in the quadrathlon. In the individual championship, Elena Polevaya from Gomel is in the lead with 37.6 points.
The evening turned out to be, one might say, an evening of "oohs" and "sighs." As far back as April, at the USSR Cup, experts reached a consensus that the current compulsory program is not particularly difficult - it simply demands precise execution. Yet, surprisingly enough, the young women are still struggling to pull it off. And there is, perhaps, a specific explanation for this.
Some coaches decided since the compulsory is easy, then the first post-Olympic season offered an opportunity to devote more attention to mastering new elements and to choreograph more interersting optional routines. The premise is generally logical. However, gymnastics is a sport where leaning too heavily in one direction yields little benefit: "school" - the fundamental technical groundwork - is "school," and without mastering it, one cannot hope to win the all-around.
Other coaches got so carried away with "restructuring" - and in devising programs that were perhaps highly original - that for almost a whole year they literally never left the gym, all the while neglecting "training the nerves," or, simply put, competitive experience. Yet where else but at competitions is consistency forced and self-confidence cultivated? If you do not compete, you lose the habit - and it is precisely a habit - of maintaining composure and mobilizing your inner resources.
For example, take two pupils of the Rostov coach Vladislav Rastorotsky - Natasha Shaposhnikova and Natasha Yurchenko. They spent the entire season in the shadows - that is to say, they competed very little. They trained extensively and revamped their routines, yet they never tested themselves in major tournaments. And now, they failed to cope with their natural nerves precisely at the moment when the crucial team selection for the World Championships was underway. Both fell off the balance beam (Shaposhnikova scored 8.55, and Yurchenko 8.2). Nor did the vault earn them any high scores.
However, this compulsory vault is currently a source of considerable concern. Very few competitors have managed to execute it correctly. The highest score so far is 9.3. Among the current leaders, this mark was earned by fifteen-year-old Irina Klimenko, a resident of Kiev. Olympic champion Olga Korbut, who is serving as a judge on this event, observed: "The girls demonstrated surprisingly poor landings. Their run-up speed was miscalculated, the rotation pattern in the air is messy, and the gymnasts made unnecessary "flailing" movements - even though the body is supposed to remain perfectly straight. Perhaps they should have studied the biomechanical analysis of this vault as executed to perfection by Lyudmila Turischeva or Karin Janz. It seems to me that, in this particular variation, an extended second phase of flight is unnecessary; after all, the primary objective is a clean, precise landing."
Yes, this vault disheartened many athletes. We saw how Elena Davydova from Leningrad was discouraged (she scored only 9.1 on the first attempt). But the all-around Olympic champion pulled herself together and did not become limp, but continued to fight further, with her inherent passion. At the end of the evening, with such daring, with such rapture, she performed floor exercises and managed to peel the highest mark of the day - 9.65 - from the super-strict judges.
What about Alla Misnik, an eighth-grader from Kharkov, who won the USSR Cup this year? She, as always, was unusually serious and casual, and warmed up (Alla cannot live a minute without movement) at a whirlwind pace, but her favorite bars almost let her down - 9.1. Misnik overdid it a little: she deftly went into a handstand on the lower pole, but arched her body so that her legs touched the upper pole. Coach Valentin Shumovsky just shook his head at the quite unforeseen "puncture."
The gymnast who coped with the compulsory so well was Lena Polevaya. Many times it was written about her precisely in this connection: "Polevaya from Gomel successfully performed at the "school"." Lena made her senior debut at the 1977 USSR Cup in Minsk, where she took third place. And then she didn't particularly shine anywhere, but she was often among the winners of the USSR Championships in event finals. This season, she excelled at the Schoolchildrens' Spartakiad - second place. How many nights her coach Boris Shakhnovich didn't sleep well, tormented by the question: "Why is there no stability?" He told us that Lena was a gentle and kind person, that for a long time she could not fight on the platform, clenching her teeth, and when she was close to victories she retreated and broke down. "Maturity is only coming to her now. She has a passion for music, books, and broadening her horizons - all this makes Lena more confident, and she really reveals herself as a talented gymnast," Shakhnovich said, and his thoughts were about tomorrow - will she survive, will his student survive this time?
TECHNICAL RESULTS
USSR Championships in gymnastics. Women. Compulsory program. 1. E. Polevaya (BLR) - 37.6 (9.25, 9.4, 9.45, 9.5); 2. E. Davydova (LEN) and T. Frolova (RSFSR-1) - 37.45; 4. N. Ilienko (KAZ) - 37.3; 5. I. Klimenko (UKR) - 37.3; 6. T. Arzhannikova (BLR) - 37.2; 7. M. Filatova (RSFSR-1) - 37.1; 8. A. Misnik (UKR) - 36.95; 9. S. Zakharova (UKR) - 36.95; 10. E. Gurina (MOS) - 36.85.
Team standings. 1. RSFSR-1 - 185.2; 2. Ukraine - 183.7; 3. Belorussia - 182.85; 4. Leningrad - 181.4; 5. Moscow - 180.35; 6. Kazakhstan - 180.3.
V. GOLUBEV
M. SUPONEV
S. TOKAREV