Sovetsky Sport. September 15, 1982. Chelyabinsk. The 48th USSR championship in gymnastics has started here. Almost all of our strongest took to the stage, with the exception of the all-around world champion O. Bicherova and the all-around Olympic champion E. Davydova, who did not have tine to heal from summer training injuries, as well as N. Shaposhnikova: the famous athlete got married and left the sport (except perhaps she will perform on exhibition tours).
Having written "almost all" I added "finally": after all, we haven't seen our leaders for about a year, since the Moscow world championships. The past time was spent on foreign trips and on modernizing programs, mastering the options that will be offered to the viewer at the USSR Spartakiad, the 1983 world championships and, finally, at the Olympics. So, the quiet year of 1982 is extremely important for our gymnasts, and the competition in Chelyabinsk is the first test, the first rehearsal.
Before the competition began, the mood of the senior coaches was somewhat different - judging, in any case, by the tone of their conversations with your correspondent. Leonid Arkaev, who heads the men's team, with a quick prodding, names the new elements that Yuri Korolev, Bogdan Makuts, Alexander Tkachev, Artur Akopyan and the newlywed Pavlik Sut (he is Shaposhnikova's husband) have enriched their optional routines with. And the unbending courage of Alexander Dityatin evokes constant admiration in the coach - quite understandable: it's more difficult for a person with Dityatin's sports experience to take risks and master innovations than a young guy, and his position obliges him to always be "in the saddle."
Andrei Rodionenko, who recently took over the women's team (by no means in ideal condition) was more laconic and more thoughtful. He also spoke about renewal - without this it is now impossible in gymnastics, and the hands of the clock, measuring the time of transformation of a unique trick into an ordinary everyday life, is spinning faster and faster. But Rodionenko, as I understand it, is concerned not so much with updating the programs but with the composition. In six months, more than forty reservists were screened at the training camps of the country's first day, and checkmarks appeared next to the names of about ten.
The men were the first to enter the competition. After completing the compulsory program, world champion Artur Akopyan (Labor Reserves) is in the lead - 57.4, beating this year's USSR Cup winner Vladimir Artemiev (Dinamo 1) by 0.05 points. In the team standings, Dinamo's first team is ahead, followed by the Army team and the Trud team.
S. TOKAREV