1982
USSR CHAMPIONSHIPS
OLYMPUS' CHALLENGE
(the article published in Ukrainian 'Sportyvna Hazeta' on January 16, 1982)
TO THE RESULTS OF THE USSR FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS
IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED that our national team met the four-year cycle after Lake Placid radically renewed. Other leaders have come to the fore. And although you cannot deny their skills, they have lost some of the positions of their predecessors. A characteristic detail: those who were already well-known to the world - Bobrin (single skating), Vorobyova - Lisovsky (pair skating) - took up the baton. We can refer to the extensive practical experience of these skaters. However, their high authority, gained in previous seasons, seems to be more important.
Newcomers on the international stage have a much harder time. In figure skating, you have to be born Irina Rodnina to conquer Olympus on your first try. Both Seifert, Cousins, and even Pakhomova and Gorshkov fought their way to the top through the conservative traditions of judging, and even the outright subjectivity of the servants of Themis for more than one or two seasons...
What is the solution? Some experts suggest “flirting” with young talents in advance, recalling the case of Nepela, who made his debut at the Games-64 at the age of thirteen and took last place there, and then, step by step, rose to recognition and “gold” at the Games-72. But next to Nepela, as now next to the capable Yugoslav Dubravčić, there were no competitors. No one, even a young man, pushed him further than second place at the national championship, no one stepped on his heels. Our figure skating (except for singles) has never complained about the lack of a capable change.
The number of tickets to the European and world championships has strict limits. And to take at least one of them away from a mature, stable master for the sake of an experiment that may or may not bear fruit someday is timid. There are, of course, a number of international tournaments, including the Moscow one, where beginners cast their votes. Unfortunately, the judges take into account only conservative, so to speak, education - participation in world and European championships, which our debutants most often get to only after the champions have left. There are, however, those who have been in second positions for a long time, covering the rear. However, the second in figure skating rarely become the first: and the judges have become accustomed to a certain distribution of roles, and the spiritual strength of the "forever second" is not unlimited. At such a level, one step up requires so much search, so much work that the most talented give up.
Winning traditions, modern training methods do not yet guarantee the inheritance of higher titles by representatives of the same school. For example, our ice dance sport is clearly on the rise. There is a rich selection of universally trained couples, with whom the best specialists work, but the world crown has been lost. When will it be possible to return it? What is being done to make the change of generations in other sports more painless? Were there any surprises or discoveries at the national championships in Riga? I asked Olympic champions Irina RODNINA, Natalia Linichuk, Honored Master of Sports Alexei MISHIN, Honored Coach of the USSR Viktor KUDRYAVTSEV to answer these questions.
Irina RODNINA - about pair skating
- TO BE HONEST, the prize-winners did not please me. All of them, without exception, performed poorly in lifts, and performed unsteadily. The monotony of the musical accompaniment of the Pestova - Leonovich, Pershina - Akbarov pairs is also annoying. In my time, the female partner set the tone. Now the roles have somehow become leveled, and the emotional colors have faded... These remarks do not apply, however, to our leaders Vorobyova and Lisovsky, who limited themselves to performing a short program in Riga.
I was at the training of the current world champions and I bow my head to the courage of Irina. After all, in December she suffered a treacherous injury, underwent meniscus surgery, and a month later she regained her physical condition. I think that the leaders will be ready for the main starts. But who will be able to support them adequately?
Due to the new rules, which limited the number of super-complex elements, we lost the advantage over our rivals in jumping and acrobatics. In other components, the forces are approximately equal. As the GDR championships showed, our old friends Thierbach – Baess are perfectly prepared. True, the skaters of the GDR traditionally do not know how to approach the peak of their form at the most necessary moment. But it is naive to count on this.
So, do we not have a promising reserve? We have! Personally, I liked the skating of Selezneva - Makarov: clean, plastic and at the same time powerful. If it were not for the fall, this couple would be on the pedestal. I see its main charm in the fact that the athletes and coach Moskvin resurrected some forgotten pair elements. They effectively woven them into a super-modern composition.
I would also like to emphasize the physical training of the skaters. Although the duration of the free program was reduced to 4.5 minutes, this did not make the task easier, as the figures from the technical committee of the international federation thought, but rather complicated it. Because when I have, for example, 13 interesting elements in my arsenal, I will not refuse any of them, I will simply build the composition more densely. The reform was aimed at returning the spectacle to pair skating. And it turned out the opposite - the athletes simply lost the pauses for beautiful skating and spectacular poses. And Stanislav Zhuk did the right thing, emphasizing athleticism, speed, and endurance in the preparation of his new pair of Avstriyskaya - Kvashnin. It is no coincidence that Marina and Yuriy became the best among juniors. They are the tomorrow of pair skating.
Viktor KUDRYAVTSEV and Alexey MISHIN - about single skating
- The first six men showed brilliant preparation. There were some setbacks, but the level of skill of each one met world standards. Soft sliding, light jumps and pirouettes are the trump cards of the Odessan Uspensky. Kotin is reaching out to Bobrin in search of original compositions that would better convey the originality of each of them, high technique. Slowly but steadily, Kharkiv resident Egorov is gaining altitude. But Fadeev, Zhuk's student, was especially impressive. In the month that has passed since the Moscow international tournament, he managed to learn a completely new, extremely complex program and perform it flawlessly in Riga. Believe me, only top-class masters can do five different triple jumps cleanly in conditions of fierce competition. And in reserve, Alexander still has a unique axel jump of 3.5 turns! In his person, in the person of Kotin, our leader Bobrin has excellent help.
Things turned for the better in the girls, Kira Ivanova performed successfully in the fall in Canada, where she beat the bronze medalist of the European Championship-81, the Austrian Kristofics-Binder. In Riga she fell ill, but in the short program she even beat Elena Vodorezova. The latter, in turn, regained her title of champion, showing mature skating. And I would call the debutant of the senior tournament Anna Antonova from Leningrad a discovery. Like her friend at the school of Alexei Mishin - Marina Serova, Anna underwent a completely different, different from the established, training system, the essence of which was to intensify each lesson, frequent performances of all compositions with full dedication. As a result, both delight the eye with the speed of sliding, the grace of performing ultra-C.
I would like to note the Kyiv resident Natalia Gorbenko. The girl trains with Lidia Maslyukova from Avangard, and is an intern with the same Mishin. Third place in the free program, even among juniors, is evidence of the debutant's extraordinary talent.
Prospects at the European and world championships? I think that today they are primarily associated with the names of Ivanova and Vodorezova. Both are capable of making it to the European podium. Their successors still lack stability and self-confidence. Remember how Serova blew an ordinary element in the short program, blew it right after the flawless execution of a combination of a double flip and a triple toeloop – a unique combination.
O. M. - I am grateful to my colleague for the kind words addressed to me and I fully agree with him regarding the state of affairs in the men's event. Here, in my opinion, each of the prize-winners can become the European champion. But I disagree with Kudryavtsev's conclusions regarding women's single skating.
Here we have been hopelessly floundering among outsiders for a long time. Unfortunately, neither Vodorezova nor Ivanova will correct the situation. The judges know them well, they know the strengths and weaknesses of their talent and have compiled a certain scale of the capabilities of these skaters. Let's be honest, the scale is quite limited. To conquer Olympus, one must surprise, even stun its "gods." That is why I believe that those who are capable of challenging the greats today and climbing the Olympic podium tomorrow, in 1984, should be sent to European and world tournaments. It is in this type that we must take risks, because we have practically nothing to lose. After all, Antonova, Serova, and other young people will not perform worse than Ivanova last year (eleventh place in Hartford).
Natalia LINICHUK – about ice dancing
- IF earlier, Tatyana Tarasova's couples distinguished themselves, as a rule, only in free dances, now they are also successful in compulsory ones. This significantly improved the chances of Bestemyanova and Bukin in the fight for world recognition, although I think that this time the English will retain the title of the best. Mishin is right: for the "gold" at the Olympics, one should present not only a technical and elegant, but also an original, unlike any other dance, which would say a new word in the development of modern ice dancing. Such couples should be urgently sought in the nearest reserve of the national team. After all, we have an enviable choice. The main thing is to dispose of them economically and with a perspective.
Afterword. Already after the championships in Riga, a meeting of the coaching council was held, which determined the composition of the USSR national team for the main starts of the season. If there were no disagreements when selecting candidates in men's single skating and pair skating (Bobrin, Kotin, Fadeev, Vorobyova-Lisovsky, Pestova-Leonovich, Pershina-Akbarov), in the other two cases, different opinions arose. In the end, it was decided to include three prize-winners in the ice dance team (Bestemyanova - Bukin, Moiseeva - Minenkov, Volozhinskaya - Svinin), although several experts suggested Dnipropetrovsk Karamysheva - Sinitsyn instead of Moiseeva - Minenkov. But regarding the single skating representative, the coaches never reached an agreement. One of these days, Vodorezova, Ivanova and Antonova will hold an additional competition (a rare event!) to determine two tickets to Lyon, where the European Championships will start in early February.
G. KUZMIN,
special correspondent of "Sportyvna Hazeta".
Riga - Kyiv.
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