Chasing Artemev

Sovetsky Sport. September 16, 1982. In short, the first evening of the championship boiled down to the fact that our world champions spent two hours in a row together and took turns following the not-at-all famous Minsk resident Vladimir Artemev, and only towards the end did Artur Akopyan take half a step ahead of him (0.05 points).

The situation is simple, if you think academically and coldly. Akopyan, Makuts, Sut, Dityatin, Korolev and Tkachev spent the whole year nursing injuries, touring cities and towns all across the planet and - mainly - saturating their optional programs with novelties. The compulsory program has been put aside, and it (seemingly simple for such masters) is built on a table of precise angles and is screwed together so finely that, if one nut was to loosen, the look would no longer be the same. But the strongest understood that the "intermediate" year did not require a compulsory program from them, so for now it would work out. Artemev won the USSR Cup with this program at the beginning of the summer, and it was "on his lips."

But all sober considerations crumble under the pressure of ego, ambition and unfulfilled hopes at a competition of this rank. Let's say, for example, the fate of Artemev. He started his career brightly, but then he had the misfortune to suffer a severe leg fracture. They sighed about him - he was unlucky, and he was no longer regarded in "high society." But he (a courageous guy) underwent several surgeries, recovered, won the Cup ("with one goal"), but - "who competed there, in that Cup? Nobody." Artemev has been hearing these conversations around him for several months now and, of course, longs to prove the weight of that victory. In his Dinamo team, according to the lineup, he competes earlier than Dityatin and Tkachev and, therefore, in theory, the notorious "law of rising scores" is in their favor. But he is still afraid of his long-suffering leg, he's not sure about the vault, he's not sure about the floor exercises, and he will finish on floor exercises.

He starts on pommel horse. His swings are high and he's nervous - 9.7 - the leader.

He's the leader together with Yuri Korolev. The young all-around world champion flew onto the floor mat, as if in a calvary attack, with his lips pressed together. This is also to prove that everything was natural a year ago on the Moscow platform...

He tried really hard. On the very next apparatus he overdid it on the pommel horse, which so brilliantly crowned his performance last fall. And here he sat between the pommels. He sat with his back to us, dejected. He grieved for a few seconds (it seemed like a lot longer), pulled himself together and quickly performed a high dismount - 8.85. So what, everything is still ahead, four rotations, two days of all-around (and people who didn't get out of seventh place), his whole life ahead, and a cheerful flock of girls follows Yura to the Malachite Hotel.

Dityatin started with a score of 9.5 on the pommel horse - a normal, all-around score. He was magnificent on the rings (9.7), where his slow descent into a horizontal height once again made it possible to admire the power of his muscles and spirit. After the world championship, where our captain led the team with a heavy limp, some of the specialists were planning to retire the sports career of the 25-year-old hero - prematurely. On the first night, Dityatin's worst scores were 9.45 on vault and 9.35 on floor, but his eternal equanimity, I assure you, is not apparent. He goes his own way, without fuss, and if he proves anything it is to himself. The author does not refuse what was once said about him: "the unsinkable Neva icebreaker."

I've already said that Akopyan and Makuts were chasing Artemev. Akopyan's scores fell below the 9.5 level. Thin, sonorous, "crystal" as Arkaev once said - this unique athlete, having entered manhood, shines with some kind of even light, which is in his look, in the manner which he holds himself, in the lines of his body (where the gymnastic eye rests), in reliable all-around training. And so he comes out to the final apparatus. His vault is high and far, and at the highest point of the trajectory there is a precise, beautifully accentuated turn. 9.65.

Bogdan Makuts' lowest score was 9.4, which is where he started - on floor exercise. He went on to accelerate, catch up with the second all-around athlete in the world - a tenth, two tenths - and finished on the high bar with a score of 9.7. Makuts' coach Evgeny Paitra, bristling with hie weaten Zaporozhe mustache, then reprimanded his student - not for the finish but for the start, on floor. He rightly pointed out the need for a balanced all-around competition.

Small, frowning under his bangs, Artemev waited for his fate - he did everythinghe could on the floor, but he had nowhere the take-off power (9.35). He did everything he could on the first evening. Let's pay tribute to his perseverance, his athletism, and note in passing how tiny the gaps in the scores are: in essence, the top three in the first round competed to a draw.

If anyone attempted to wedge himself into the dispute for leadership, it is the national champion (for now) Alexander Tkachev. He didn't make obvious errors anywhere, but he was pretty much lacking everywhere. I hope his coach, my friend Mikhail Voronin, will not be offended by me if I assume that his most amiable student always struggles a little in a tough fight, especially if he stands in the same formation, shoulder to shoulder - and a little lower (in any case, by height) - with the steel shoulder of Dityatin.

TECHNICAL RESULTS
48th USSR gymnastics championships. Chelyabinsk. 14 September.

Compulsory program.

Team standings. 1. Dinamo 1 - 283.7; 2. Army 1 - 282.7; 3. Trud 1 - 279.3; 4. Burevestnik - 278.5; 5. Labor Reserves - 276.95; 6. Zenit - 269.35.

S. TOKAREV

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