Via Natalia Kalugina.
1968 Olympic champion, Larissa Petrik, BB. How difficult to make such simplicity beautiful. http://youtu.be/EMUEo5P1dGE
Monday, December 21, 2015
Saturday, December 12, 2015
1983 World Championships - WAG
It's worth watching these timeless videos. Check out the routines of Alla Shishova, especially on beam. She was ahead of her time. Also observe the magnificent artistry of Olga Mostepanova and Natalia Yurchenko. Neither gymnast had intricate choreography, but they were both captivating. Their work conveyed emotional as well as technical impact. Yurchenko moves slowly, floating through the air. Who would think that such a light, slender gymnast as Mostepanova could find all that air time in her tumbles? Technique, not muscle, gave these gymnasts their power. Their artistry came from the consummate grasp of technique, something that cannot be expressed as execution or entertainment. Ilienko, Bicherova, Frolova are other classical members of this team. They will all be remembered for a very long time.
The Soviet team managed to fall off beam even in those days, but their superior difficulty and technique lifted them above the rest of the field.
The equipment was different in those days, most clearly the vault, bars and floor but the beam is softer now. These gymnasts also had to prepare two different sets of routines, compulsory and optional. The discipline of the compulsory programme, which evaluated artistry via a close focus on technique, shows in the optional routines.
You will also enjoy seeing the work of the Romanian and British teams. Boryana Stoyanova of Bulgaria shines, as does Maxi Gnauck.
WAG team final
WAG AA final
WAG event finals
The Soviet team managed to fall off beam even in those days, but their superior difficulty and technique lifted them above the rest of the field.
The equipment was different in those days, most clearly the vault, bars and floor but the beam is softer now. These gymnasts also had to prepare two different sets of routines, compulsory and optional. The discipline of the compulsory programme, which evaluated artistry via a close focus on technique, shows in the optional routines.
You will also enjoy seeing the work of the Romanian and British teams. Boryana Stoyanova of Bulgaria shines, as does Maxi Gnauck.
WAG team final
WAG AA final
WAG event finals
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Pregnancy doping - the context
For those of you coming to the story about pregnancy doping late, and wondering what on earth those translations I published this morning are all about, some context -
The Observer published a history of cheating in sport on the 15th November that featured allegations of pregnancy doping in the USSR gymnastics team at the 1968 Olympics. The allegations were pivotal to their story, although they could have chosen a different example to make their point. I have now published three articles on RRG about this - the first an opinion piece with reference to sources refuting the allegation, and this morning translations of two Russian language reports from 1998 and 2001, including a Vladimir Golubev interview with Karasyova in which she describes the whole story as a 'monstrous' lie. The chronology has become clearer, and a few confusions been cleared up.
I wanted these pieces to go on the record in the English language.
I have written to the Observer readers' editor twice about this, on the grounds of accuracy, requesting a prominent clarification in view of this archival evidence that the story was bogus. I do think that they should correct their story, don't you?
Here are the links to the stories published on this blog, in case anyone wants to follow how things have developed. The articles include all the links and sources you will need.
http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/fact-or-fiction-press-gymnastics-and.html
http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-zh-cn.html
http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/is-monstrous-lie-pregnancy-doping-olga.html
Friday, December 4, 2015
Pregnancy doping - Olga Karasyova. Kommersant's account of 10th December 1998
  Olga Kharlova (left) in 1966, with the USSR World Championships team. This is before her marriage to gymnast Valeri Karasyov. Lauren Cammenga found the original Kommersant story about the bogus pregnancy doping story. The date of the article is 10th December 1998, and not as reported in my original article on RRG of 29th November. Do you agree that The Observer should now print a correction to its story of 15th November? |
SPID-Info is up the Creek 35,000 Rubles
Author: Maxim Stepenin
Translator: Lauren Cammenga
Olga Karasyova, a USSR, European, world, and 1968 Olympic champion in artistic gymnastics, has been awarded 35,000 rubles in damages from the newspaper SPID-Info. The Ismailovsky District Court awarded this, a record-breaking amount for suits of this kind, in emotional damages for a 1997 interview supposedly conducted with Karasyova. In reality, the interview supposedly given by Karasyova was given by an impostor from Germany.
It was the German journalists who were the first victims of the fraud. What�s more, they fell victim a long time ago. On November 21, 1994, the TV channel RTL, which plays in Germany but is operated in Luxembourg, aired a live interview with a certain Olga Kovalenko. She was represented to the viewers as a merited Master of Sport, 1968 Olympic champion, 1971 world champion, and multiple European and USSR medal-winner in the sport of artistic gymnastics. She gave a sensational expos� of the supposed methods used by the State Committee for Sport and coaches to obtain such stellar results. �They forced us to get pregnant by our coaches, and after 9-10 weeks, just before important competitions, we had to get abortions. The thing is, during that time hormone levels in a woman�s body increase sharply. This stimulates physical development and can boost results. That�s how we won.�
A number of European publications ran the story, and all of them were duped. It turned out that the real owner of all the titles listed above never gave an interview to RTL. The day the live interview aired she was on a Mediterranean cruise with a bunch of Olympic champions from various eras.
There was also a discrepancy over the athlete�s surname. The champion was known by the name �Karasyova,� not �Kovalenko.� She only took her husband�s name, Kovalenko, after she left the sport, although by the time the interview aired she was �Karasyova� once more.
Karasyova, in Moscow, began to be exhausted by reporters from foreign publications, though when they heard the whole story, the reporters became disappointed. She was planning to sue RTL, but that turned out to be too difficult and expensive. Everything would have blown over, except that three years later Spid-INFO, a monthly publication, unearthed the bogus scandal.
In April of 1997, Spid-INFOpublished an article by Irina Ovanesyan called �In Bed with Coach.� Ovanesyan used excerpts from that sensational �interview� and added doctors� commentary. She also said that she �spoke with Olga Kovalenko, who lives and works abroad, over the telephone.�
The real Kovalenko-Karasyova, who has always lived in Moscow, remembers the shock she felt. �After all, everything had already been sorted out! I had even had to give the Russian Olympic Committee an official explanation! And here it was again!� The former gymnast ended up in the hospital with a nervous breakdown. When she was released, she began trying to get Spid-INFO to write a retraction, but wasn�t able to solve the problem amicably. It was then that Karasyova pursued a libel lawsuit. In addition to a retraction, she requested 250,000 rubles in emotional damages.
In court, Spid-INFO insisted that Ovanesyan spoke with a woman named Kovalenko in Germany, and even gave a phone number where she could be reached. Karasyova�s lawyer could not reach anyone at the number, and everything became clear. A few days later the court ruled that Spid-INFOwould have to publish a retraction. The amount of damages was lowered substantially, but 35,000 rubles is still a rare amount for this type of case. Only the Vertinskaya sisters (Anastasia and Marianna, famous Soviet actresses) won more, in their case 142,000,000 old rubles (the ruble was redenominated on 1 January, 1998, shortly before the 1998 Russian financial crisis) from the newspaper Megapolis-Express. Now Karasyova says she has decided to go forward with the lawsuit with RTL.
Karasyova told a reporter for Kommersantthat she�s never heard of the kind of scandalous method of gymnastics achievement that is now attributed to her. �It�s all rubbish,� she said.
With many thanks to Lauren for her translation!
Link to the Kommersant article - http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/210330
Link to the RRG article which gives the background - http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/fact-or-fiction-press-gymnastics-and.html
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina - interviews
At the recent press conference, both Aliya and Vika gave short interviews. You can finds videos of them and the ROC's website.
Olesya Mikheeva has found time to provide some translations - thank you!!
Aliya's Interview.
�Operation was done on November 3rd, so about 3 weeks ago, so now I�m recovering/rehabilitating until December 7th, I�m not allowed to jump/run/go upstairs, I�m still wearing a cast. This is the last week of this. After that, I will start a more difficult recovery to build muscles, rehabilitate so in February I can get back to jumping. �
The interviewer asks about her injury and she says she had a meniscus injury. (don�t know how to translate the details)
When can you start training again?
�I think I�ll start training again when I�m out of the hospital because I�m still concurrently rehabilitating my back so until the New Year I will be doing that.�
The interviewer asks something about the judging and Aliya gives a quote, but I�m not quite sure how to translate it. Then he asks if she�s ever been to Brazil and she says �I�ve never been to Brazil, but I want to. Of course I want to.�
�Operation was done on November 3rd, so about 3 weeks ago, so now I�m recovering/
The interviewer asks about her injury and she says she had a meniscus injury. (don�t know how to translate the details)
When can you start training again?
�I think I�ll start training again when I�m out of the hospital because I�m still concurrently rehabilitating my back so until the New Year I will be doing that.�
The interviewer asks something about the judging and Aliya gives a quote, but I�m not quite sure how to translate it. Then he asks if she�s ever been to Brazil and she says �I�ve never been to Brazil, but I want to. Of course I want to.�
Viktoria's interview
About herself on the team in 2015:
�Well without saying, this was my best year because I was finally able to compete, in the European Games we took 1st as a team, unfortunately I wasn�t able to compete individually because it was only 1 per country, and of course the world championships. Of course the world championships didn�t start out too well, in the team competition I performed poorly, there�s not much to hide there, but we finished well, even with gold medals, there were even 4 gold medals, first time in history, that was something incredible.
About returning to the team:
�It was very difficult to return because I didn�t compete for 3 years, those were the very worst years of my life because it was just training and then injuries and there was no more desire because I was preparing and then getting injured right away. I wanted to quit and I tried to quit more than once to be honest, but the Olympics gave me the push to keep going.�
Who impacted your decision to keep going or was it just you?
�Well of course my parents and I myself�. well actually I kind of quit at home, and then Andrey called me and told me to come back right away in 2 days to Lake Krugloye and there I started training slowly and slowly developed a desire again slowly. Also I had fought with my coach and then when I had gotten back into shape I called my coach and said I was ready to work and let�s forget about it and so that�s how I got back on the team.�
About Olympics in Rio
�I have the moral strength, I want to go there, we could say this is my last chance to go because after that I won�t be able to, I�ll be somewhat old for gymnastics. Well of course I want to hope for the best but I don�t want to guess because it�s pointless because anything can happen at the Olympics.�
On life outside of sport
�I rarely have time outside of sport, but I like to sew.� She continues to talk about details related to sewing or types of sewing I�m not sure that she enjoys. �I like to hang out with friends, go to movies, or just hang out. This year we saw on the internet that there would be a meteor shower and went and watched it which was really cool, out in the open air with friends, what could be better.�
What about personal life?
�For now, just sport, I don�t think about personal life for now, first I need to get everything out of sport and then attend to personal life.�
About herself on the team in 2015:
�Well without saying, this was my best year because I was finally able to compete, in the European Games we took 1st as a team, unfortunately I wasn�t able to compete individually because it was only 1 per country, and of course the world championships. Of course the world championships didn�t start out too well, in the team competition I performed poorly, there�s not much to hide there, but we finished well, even with gold medals, there were even 4 gold medals, first time in history, that was something incredible.
About returning to the team:
�It was very difficult to return because I didn�t compete for 3 years, those were the very worst years of my life because it was just training and then injuries and there was no more desire because I was preparing and then getting injured right away. I wanted to quit and I tried to quit more than once to be honest, but the Olympics gave me the push to keep going.�
Who impacted your decision to keep going or was it just you?
�Well of course my parents and I myself�. well actually I kind of quit at home, and then Andrey called me and told me to come back right away in 2 days to Lake Krugloye and there I started training slowly and slowly developed a desire again slowly. Also I had fought with my coach and then when I had gotten back into shape I called my coach and said I was ready to work and let�s forget about it and so that�s how I got back on the team.�
About Olympics in Rio
�I have the moral strength, I want to go there, we could say this is my last chance to go because after that I won�t be able to, I�ll be somewhat old for gymnastics. Well of course I want to hope for the best but I don�t want to guess because it�s pointless because anything can happen at the Olympics.�
On life outside of sport
�I rarely have time outside of sport, but I like to sew.� She continues to talk about details related to sewing or types of sewing I�m not sure that she enjoys. �I like to hang out with friends, go to movies, or just hang out. This year we saw on the internet that there would be a meteor shower and went and watched it which was really cool, out in the open air with friends, what could be better.�
What about personal life?
�For now, just sport, I don�t think about personal life for now, first I need to get everything out of sport and then attend to personal life.�
Aliya - http://olympic.ru/news/interview/aliia-mustafina-vse-chto-ni-delaetsia-vse-k/
Viktoria - http://olympic.ru/news/interview/viktoriia-komova/
Good luck, girls!
