Sovetsky Sport. April 19, 1980. Kiev, 18 April (our special correspondent). The USSR championships in gymnastics started at the Sports Palace. Soon we will know the names of the all-around champions of the country.
So this day has come, perhaps the most important in the chain of long-term preparation for the Olympic tournament. Today, the whole color of national gymnastics, all those who claim to compete in the main team of the country, are called to the All-Union platform. the squad of candidates for the Olympics is now quite large. Let's add here, of course, the daring debutants who will try to show off to squeeze out some of the famous masters.
Here's a great example for the men. Last year, at the VII Summer Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR, everyone liked the 18-year-old Yerevan resident Artur Akopyan. His performance was stable, his lines of movement were clean and elegant, and his exercises were as difficult as those of the leaders. This junior was included in the team which in December 1979 in the American city of Fort Worth won the gold medal of world champions after an almost 20-year break!
Yes, that world championship was a milestone in every way. The beautiful victories of Alexander Dityatin, Nelli Kim, and the Soviet men's team proved the correctness of the preparation for the main competitions over the four years. At the same time, the loss by our women's team (only the second time in history of the world championships), and the absence of the highest awards for our women in the event finals, of course, must be offset by the gaps, miscalculations, and shortcomings.
During the time that has passed since the end of the world championship, the leading gymnasts of the country have managed in most cases to modernize and work out the latest versions of their Olympic routines. True, not eveyone succeeded, and various injuries got in the way of Eduard Azaryan, Bogdan Makuts, Artur Akopyan, Elena Mukhina, and Tatiana Arzhannikova. However, let's see the degree of their readiness.
In good form are Olympic champion Nikolai Andrianov, bronze medalist of the world championship Alexander Tkachev, winner of the Riga-80 tournament Valentin Turbanov, world champion in the team classification Vladimir Markelov, the all-around champion of the Spartakiad Natalia Shaposhnikova, the owner of the World Cup Stella Zakharova, the "queen" of the world platform Nelli Kim, and others.
The men's teams entered the fight first. The compulsory program is insidious and difficult. Two years ago in Strasbourg we lost to the Japanese masters in this "genre": it turned out that not all of our guys correctly interpreted individual elements. But the picture was already different in Fort Worth: the wide amplitude and completeness of the movement of our gymnasts impressed the judges.
How did the gymnasts "decipher" this difficult compulsory program in Kiev?
In the first shift, three gymnasts from the Avangard team excelled at the same time: Anatoly Kambov from Donetsk, his fellow countryman Sergei Romanenko, and Nikolai Sitsenko from Kiev. They scored the same amount - 54.4. And Anatoly Kambov's brother, Vladimir, was in fourth place with 54.1.
Then the gymnasts of the strongest shift came to the platform.
G. BORISOV
V. GOLUBEV