MacFormat 1996 July/macformat-039.iso/DATABASE/BODY/KORBUT.TXT

Text File | 1996-01-29 | 12.7 KB | 266 lines | [TEXT/MSWD]

1.5
Aged 17, but looking scarcely 13, Olga Korbut turned
gymnastics into a child sport at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
In the twinkling of Korbut's smile, sport - and not merely
gymnastics - tumbled towards pre-pubescence. A touch over
5ft and eighty-four pounds, her underdeveloped, waif-like
body, tight pigtails and cheeky floor and beam routines
changed beyond recognition the gymnastics invented 2500
years ago in China and Greece. She was, in a sense, a child of
television. Despite the cold war, she so enchanted the world
that infants everywhere mimicked the contorting routines
that the adult female figure could never perform. Before
Korbut, the balletic Vera Caslavska and Ludmilla Turishcheva
were champions of femininity. Before Korbut, Britain had
50,000 child gymnasts; within eight years that had spiralled
to 3 million. Child health experts observed Korbut clones as
"dwarfs whose puberty is delayed". Pills, they said, could
delay growth, but so could competitive and training stress.
By then Olga had been eclipsed. In one Olympic cycle, Nadia
Comaneci, 14, was the new darling. And Olga? She admitted:
"By 1976 I was burned out. My body was overworked, my
inner fire died.'' Married to pop singer Leonid Bartkevich,
Olga became a housewife. She discouraged their son Richard
from the "self flagellation'' of a sporting childhood. Her bouts
of depression eased with glasnost, and at last came
invitations from an outside world which remembered her
fame
@
2.2
No matter how big the public smile, a gymnast cannot hope
to reach or maintain a place at the top without a long
background of hard, repetitive and often dull training. It was
not just Olga Korbut's smile that made her such a celebrity -
without the skill acquired by strict training, fewer people
would have been captivated by it.

Her routine is clockwork. Up at 7.30 to prepare her breakfast
of an egg, a little meat and coffee, or her favourite food,
which is said, of all things, to be ketchup. She is capable of
consuming up to two pints at a sitting, and thinks nothing of
it. Her source of energy, perhaps?

She trains from nine till eleven, then studies history at a
teacher training college in her home town Grodno, just east of
the Soviet-Polish border. At four she has a late lunch of a
thick vegetable soup, and occasionally a little meat, then
trains again from six till nine, when she has tea and some
fruit. Bed at 10.30: she needs eight or nine hours sleep a
night to keep up the routine six days a week. No wonder, you
might say, she is only 4ft 11in and weighs just 82 pounds.

When she first started gymnastics there were fears that for
all her courage and stamina she might not have sufficient
strength in the upper part of her body for the asymmetric
bars, but these were soon dispelled, and in gymnastics the
strength-weight ratio is of vital importance, with a maximum
of strength and a minimum of weight needed in the frame.
Olga, who is not yet 19, with her boyish physique and
slender hips, has no problem maintaining this ratio.

In bar exercises, women gymnasts are luckier than men
because their centre of gravity is lower down the body,
increasing the distance between the hands and line of axis in
flight, and so allowing longer time within the movement. Olga
is luckier still. Her relatively long legs enable her particularly
to benefit from this.

Some experts now consider women's gymnastics to be even
further developed than the men's, and several of Olga's more
daring moves raised the threat of a ban by the International
Gymnastics Federation last year, though that came to nothing.

Olga is a hard-working but sometimes stubborn girl, ready to
stand up to the complex Soviet sports machinery where
psychologists are considered as necessary as coaches.  Five
days before the Russian team left for the Munich Olympics,
for instance, she insisted that the composition of her floor
exercise, on which she had been working for several months,
was unsuitable for her. She wanted an entirely new exercise.

Everybody, including coach Knysh, Soviet officials, her
choreographers, her psychologist and her doctor, tried to
dissuade her.  It was no use. She wanted, she said,
movements that would give her scope to express her real
character.  It was impossible, but they did it. And now
everyone's first memory of Olga is that floor exercise in
Munich, for which she won a gold medal. And that cheeky
smile.
@
2.4
Olga Korbut, the Russian elfin figure who was perhaps the
largest character in the whole of the Munich Olympic Games,
could not quite reward the cheering crowds by winning the
overall competition at the European women's gymnastics
championships at the Empire Pool, Wembley, last night. As in
Munich, the title was won by her less exuberant, but
technically superb countrywoman, Ludmilla Tourischeva.

The champion, and the third-placed girl, Kerstine Gerschau,
of East Germany, may well have been made to feel like
under-studies to Miss Korbut, but both raised immense
appreciation on a night unique to British sport. For this, the
first major international competition to be held in this
country, the Empire Pool, shabbily approaching old age,
camouflaged its wrinkles. Far more than at any other recent
event there, the occasion created atmosphere that was
international. The rows of television monitors, banks of
European commentators and comparatively few empty seats
obscured the cobwebs.

Even the parade of 42 competitors from 23 countries was
notable, enabling the crowd to reidentify with their little
television heroine of the Munich Games. There were only two
cheers in the cold early minutes of the evening. One was for
Britain; the other, perceptibly louder, for the Russians.

As in so many sports these days, the East Germans came
threatening rivalry for the Russians. Angelica Hellman, sixth
in the combined exercises at Munich, and a physical giant
compared with Miss Korbut, introduced herself with a
stunning performance from cold on the asymmetric bars. A
mark of 9.55 raised some pretty eyebrows, but East
Germany's second girl, Miss Gerchau, inspired the first gasp
of surprise as she leapt on to the four-inch-wide beam and
landed in a full splits position. Her performance there, and
beautiful floor exercises to a Charleston theme, placed her
ahead of Miss Hellman, and there she stayed.

The Russian girls were spectators to this, being part of a
second group to compete in the four exercises. Miss Gerschau
almost tripped as she landed after her second vault, but her
first was worth 9.25, the same as her colleague, and this left
her in the lead overall as the Russians appeared with the
second group - Miss Korbut was the only one to be cheered
for her warming up.

To divide what to most must have seemed like perfection of
movement, the judges were especially mindful of something
gymnasts call "amplitude", which is interpreted as fullness of
movement. Both East Germans had this graceful quality, and
the first sight of the champion, Miss Tourischeva, was like a
textbook explanation of this elusive, aesthetic something that
confirms the great exponents.

By chance there was no activity elsewhere when Miss Korbut
came to take the floor in the centre of the arena. This pale
wisp in red, with fair hair "bristling like her character" (as
her coach says), weaved spells with such gay impudence that
only the impassive judges were unmoved, marking her at
9.45, which was lower than the other Russian girl.

There was a sudden scuffle of activity among the experts
when Miss Korbut prepared for her second vault after a
nervous first. Someone said she was to "do something
special". In silence she took her run, and astonishingly made
a full midair twist before going over.  I found someone who
was not astonished, Stanley Wild, a member of the British
Olympic team. "How do you describe that?"  I asked. "Some
call it a Wild", he said. He modestly admitted that he
invented the vault, but had not seen anyone else complete it
since Munich.

The competition for first and second places became an all-
Russian affair as they moved to the bars. Miss Tourischeva,
as always, performed so smoothly that she stayed 10 points
ahead of Miss Korbut, who none the less drew another gasp
with a brave somersault on the higher bar.

The crowd had decided their champion, despite the marks,
but they awaited the prospect of the last sight of Miss
Korbut's famous back somersault on the beam: the exercise
likely to be banned next month. The earlier vaulting had left
her with a slight limp, but she was not disturbed. Neither
was she prepared to show any more surprises. The back
somersault, instead of returning her to her feet, was
abbreviated to the more usual back somersault on to the
chest. Obviously, she had accepted that the rules would be
changed and, with them, sadly, the highlight of her routine.

Miss Tourischeva, serious and composed, proceeded to
execute an amazing sequence from the bars to gather 9.55
points and so keep her title. But there was no doubting
whose tiny presence had once again won a thousand hearts.
@
2.7
It was nearly 20 years ago today that modern gymnastics
began. Munich Olympic Games, 1972. Memories of horror are
tempered with memories of Olga Korbut. Even 20 years on, I
do not need to explain who she is.

And now, at every Olympic Games, it is the same. Who is the
new Olga? And so we have Nadia and Marie Lou and Nelli
and Svetlana, and each in her own way is remarkable
enough. But every four years the same thing happens.
Everyone watches women's gymnastics, but no new Olga
emerges.

The leading contender this time not for gold but for Olgahood
is a ludicrously small, broken-toothed North Korean person
called Kim Kwang Suk. She stands 4ft 7in, weighs less than
five stone, and said: "Being small makes me fly."

She is allegedly 17. Ridiculous! She looks about half that. At
this rate, she will reach puberty at 28. She won gold on the
asymmetric bars at the world championships last year in
Indianapolis. She also appeared on the BBC Sports Personality
of the Year show, doing a routine on the beam.

"It wasn't actually a great routine, but she did well with the
grinning and waving.", said one dispassionate expert.
Grinning and waving is, of course, an important part of
women's gymnastics. Presentation is crucial in all these odd,
arbitrarily-judged sports.

One suspects that not only her chances of show-stealing
Olgahood here, but also of a gold medal, depend on that
broken tooth. If she has it fixed, she has no chance. She broke
it in a tumble on the asymmetric bars, and gave it a
charmingly asymmetric smile.

She is the logical conclusion of the smaller, faster and even
more daring movement that began all those years ago with
Olga herself. Olga competed against Ludmilla Tourischeva as
girl against woman. Kim will compete against Svetlana
Boguinskaya. This is also supposed to be girl against woman,
but Boguinskaya is built like Olga. Kim is hardly built at all; a
few ounces and a grin. That is the way gymnastics has gone.

Standards have risen hugely, inasmuch as the tumbles and
tricks have got more and more technically brilliant, and the
grinning has got more and more frenetic. Olga wowed the
world with her back somersault on the beam, but everybody
does that old thing these days.

The sport has advanced that far. Kim's winning routine in
Indianapolis was unprecedented. To blind you with science, it
involved a Tkatchev into a Marinitch, two dramatic moves
from the men's high bar never seen before in women's
gymnastics. No man had performed the two in combination.

Kim is among the favourites for gold on the asymmetric bars.
But if she has not upgraded her routine since Indianapolis,
she will not have a hope. She missed the world
championships this year, so whatever she has, innovation,
injury, weakness or, horror of horrors, the onset of puberty
remains in the realms of speculation.

She has little chance on known form and all arbitrary events
turn to run on known form of winning the individual overall
gold, the blue riband of her sport. But that is no problem in
terms of Olga potential. Olga never did it either.

But it is Olga's legacy that remains. It was she that lit the
torch. There are now more than 1,000 gym clubs in Britain,
with more than 70,000 members. Worldwide the sport is still
inventing itself, as performers like Kim push back the
boundaries. Worldwide, the sport continues to fall back on
cutesiness: grinning and waving.

The sport searches for another Olga, and so we get stage-
managed imitations of her spontaneous charm. Why imitate
the inimitable? We are as likely to get a new Olga as a new
Pavlova. Any dancer can do the steps these days, but that is
not what it is all about, is it?