Kim: I want to do a lot of things in the FIG, to turn some things upside down

Nellie Kim gave an interview to Sports.ru for their new series commemorating 40th anniversary of the 1980 Olympics. Kim talked about the Olympics, dealing with the USSR breaking down, moving to the US, and her career at the FIG.

A: The celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Olympics was wonderful: there was a parade, all the champions were invited to Moscow and put into a fancy hotel, we gave interviews, everything was beautiful and great. There was also preparation for the 40th in the works – there were talks, I heard about it from friends and acquaintances, but this COVID changed everything. If I’m not mistaken, the honoring ceremony is planned for the end of July, although no one has contacted me yet.

Q: How do you remember Moscow in 1980?

A: Clean, well-maintained, dressed up. Very sunny, that was also memorable. Those were my very first impressions, what rises in front of my eyes right away. Moscow was also empty – half the city or even more went away. But that was normal at the time: for big events, the state could easily regulate days and traffic, send people on vacations or somewhere else. People were still happy, the only issue was that they didn’t see the competition. [1] The 1980 Olympics were the only Games where I saw the closing ceremony. We had to leave other Games early. I cried when Mishka [the talisman] was flying away, it was very touching. The opening ceremony was also amazing and then the work started.

Q: Did the fact that the USA, China and tens of other countries boycotted the Games matter to you?

A: In terms of the results, no. We only considered Romania a serious rival and their team came. But the boycott mattered a lot psychologically: it was as if the Olympics were incomplete. Everything was done great – the organization, the village, the beautiful arenas – but there was a taste of nasty politics that permeated the sport. The Moscow Olympics was when I started hating dirty politics. There are generals and there’s infantry. Generals decided and the infantry didn’t go to a competition. And some people will still say after this that sports are outside of politics? Excuse me but that’s not what happens at all. You always see political movements and motives behind big decisions of sports organizations.

Q: Four years later the USSR responded by boycotting the Los Angeles Olympics – was it the right thing to do?

A: Boycott absolutely means the collapse of all dreams and plans of athletes. From the point of view of the government, it’s disrespectful towards athletes and the work they have done. If leaders of countries cannot come to agreements and decisions at their level, why do they use sports as a tool? They show their weakness as politics but don’t draw us into those games. Sports are a rare field where you can prove and win something fairly. But the higher-ups often don’t see athletes, coaches, or judges, they only see numbers, results, and personal gains. Do you remember Olga Mostepanova? I think she is the best gymnast in history – the strongest in technique and preparation… Oh, she was perfect. She was a clear 1984 champion but the opportunity to win the medal was taken from her. How can she accept this?

Q: A few weeks before the 1980 Olympics, Elena Mukhina broke her spine in training – did it happen in front of you?

A: Thank God, I didn’t see it – I left the gym shortly before her fall. We were horrified after it happened. We hoped that [the management] would help Lena with the surgery, send her abroad – perhaps, to Germany, where spinal surgery techniques were well-developed. But the management said that the Army Hospital also had good doctors and Lena was operated on at home. Later, I analyzed her situation. The issues started not a few weeks before the Olympics but a year before or even earlier: Lena was forced to perform the most difficult elements. All the main competitors performed them and something new was needed in order to win. But Lena was not ready, she just didn’t have the physical strength. I saw that and wondered why she was forced [to do the elements]. I don’t remember what was the last competition, perhaps, it was the Spartakiada or the USSR nationals: Lena fell on almost every event. If she didn’t fall, she landed badly. The element on which she got injured was completely new for women – Lena was the first and only gymnast who did it. It was first performed by an American gymnast Kurt Thomas. But after what happened to Lena, roll-out elements were banned, only the ones where you land on your feet were left.

Q: Did the tragedy that happened to Mukhina affect your preparation?

A: Very much, it defeated me mentally – I came to the Olympics with that fear. By that moment, I was already afraid of some elements. I had three elements where I was the first one to perform them. And if no one did them before you, it means a completely new technique, certain preparation and, of course, risks. When you are 18-19 or older, your mind and approach to training are not the same as they were at 15-16, you clearly understand how it can end. When Lena fell, I said right away: I won’t continue after the Olympics.

Q: I read that you got a stomach ulcer due to the shock.

A: That was an old illness, since 1977. When I got it the first time, I decided to retire – I spent a month at the hospital and missed half a year of training. I came back after all and continued to suffer for about 10 years – as soon as I was stressed or something went wrong with my nutrition, an ulcer appeared. Now it’s all fine.

Q: Ketevan Losaberidze who won gold in archery in 1980 said that each republic tried to promote the maximum number of their athletes to the Olympic teams.

A: That’s how it was then. It was hard to get onto the national team if you were from the outskirts of the USSR, because Moscow, Kyiv, Minsk, Leningrad, Yerevan, and Tbilisi dominated – capitals of the main republics, whose athletes traditionally formed the teams. There were champions before me in Kazakhstan, but then there was a period without any. And, suddenly, I appeared from a small town of Shymkent. In order to earn my spot under the sun, I had to be two heads and shoulders above others. I was so strong that it was impossible to move me, no matter how much you try. There are certain connections between people. If a gymnastics coach prepared a constellation of champions, when he comes with an average athlete, she is still seen as a future champion. I was seen as a temporary guest for some time – they thought I ended up there by accident.

Q: There is also a hypothesis that [the management] didn’t want to bring you to the 1980 Olympics because you are not ethnically Russian.

A: Perhaps, but I can’t know what the management thought. My dad is Korean, my mom is from Tatarstan. I was warmly welcomed on the team and didn’t feel discriminated against. I lived in Kazakhstan even though there is nothing Kazakh in me; then I lived in Belarus, even though there is nothing Belorussian in me. My soul is still Soviet and my family followed Russian traditions and customs. The only thing was when later, in Kazakhstan, I was hinted that if I had Kazakh roots, a Kazakh last name, things would be different for me there after retirement. But I’m very grateful to the country I grew up in, there are wonderful people with big hearts there. They are open like Kazakh steppes.

Q: Two golds were awarded on floor in Moscow – to you and Nadia Comaneci. What happened there?

A: At first, I was in the first place with a gap of one or two tenths from the second place. Then Romania appealed and Nadia’s score was raised to match mine. I think that friendship of nations played a role – let’s not argue, it’s better to share the gold in order not to upset a Socialist Bloc country. The decision on the appeal took about five minutes, everything was decided quickly.

Q: In the video from the competition, you can be seen smirking during this pause – why?

A: I knew what kind of decision they would make – to make everyone happy. There were many political moments at those Olympics, I still can’t share all the details. For example, I made the bars final in sixth – last – place. Yes, I couldn’t really expect a medal but it’s gymnastics: three people fall and here’s your medal. Before the final, I was approached by people from our management: Nelya, will you give your spot to another athlete? You don’t have a chance in any case but this way, a Socialist country can be represented. I was taken aback but said no way! I guess, if I were a 15-year-old girl, I would have agreed. But I was an adult, a champion, so I made my own decisions. I didn’t give up my spot and this was something you had to pay for – I experienced consequences. Two times, my music stopped on floor – first, in qualification, then in the all-around. Twice! That was just unheard of in our country and I don’t think it was a coincidence. Once – yeah, maybe, but not twice.

Q: Do you think your own people tried to sabotage you? What was their gain if you could win a medal?

A: I didn’t have a good relationship with the management. At the time, Yuri Titov was the president of the International federation and he was also the head of the Soviet federation. Due to an illness, my participation was in question before the Olympics, no one knew if I would be able to recover. I order to be safe, some people wanted to get rid of me in advance, they said some things about me. That is, they tried to save themselves, their positions and this affected my preparation and the trials. I had disagreements with some national team coaches and was preparing for the Olympics with an acrobatics coach Valentin Ostapenko and a choreographer Valentina Kosolapova. Despite the management’s opinion, I was able to recover in time, won everything at the trials and got on the time in the first or second spot. And since I made the team, they needed to finish me off – to show that the management was right. After two music fails, I complained and Titov asked: what, you have some results on floor? It was actually the first place. And after those two cases, Kosolapova asked or rather insisted to be in the booth where music is put on during the floor final. The third time, my music was not stopped and I won gold.

Q: What was given for the victory?

A: Some monetary award and a higher spot on the list to buy a Zhiguli car for the government price. What I’m still waiting for is the star of a senior leutenant because I competed for CSKA and had the rank of a junior leutenant. There was this Shashkov person, I think he was the Minister of Defence or the head of CSKA. He invited me to talk: Nelya, let’s do it for CSKA, we’ll give you a star for every medal. [2] I still haven’t gotten those stars. And a star is not just a rank, it’s certain privileges, a salary.

Q: In Russia, all champions get paid the Olympic stipend – 52,000 rubles [$730] a month. Do you have anything like that [in Belarus]?

A: About 600 Belorussian rubles [$250]. It doesn’t matter if you’re a one-time or a five-time Olympic champion.

Q: What is your relationship with Comaneci?

A: When we were competing, we had no communication. Just never had an opportunity: they were not allowed to talk to us, and we – to them. Moreover, we didn’t speak [a common] language. After retirement, Nadia tried judging for a year or two. And then she ended up in America, got married. I think I moved there 10 or 15 years later – we met here and became friends. Every time we meet, we have something to talk about, it’s really nice that we discovered each other. There was a time when media tried to speculate that Nadia and I are still rivals: she achieved this after her retirement and I achieved that. They tried to cause us to say negative things in interviews, but we really respect each other. Nadia, her husband Bart Conner and his coach Paul Ziert founded the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in Okhalhoma to which five people are inducted each year – not just athletes, but also coaches and outstanding administrators.

Q: You were inducted to the hall in 1999 – how does it work?

A: Nadia and Bart provide tickets, accommodation, and a trip to Las Vegas after the ceremony, to various shows. It’s all done very beautifully. A big internal competition takes place on the first day – like the US Championships for every age. Then children, parents, and everyone who wishes to buy tickets to the ceremony. The tickets aren’t cheap but that’s the money with which everything is paid for. There’s a big ballroom at a hotel, tables for 8-10 people, calm dinner, black tie dress code, inductees giving speeches on the stage. In different years, Olga Korbut, Liudmila Tourishcheva, and Larisa Latynina were inducted. I think that the Hall of Fame organizers do tremendous work. Generally, the kind of work that the international federation should be doing.

Q: Many write that you had difficult relationships with Korbut and Tourishcheva, allegedly they saw you a country bumpkin.

A: Seriously? Wow, that’s the first time I hear it. Perhaps, this came from their coaches – Rastorotskiy, Khomutov, Knysh – they considered themselves an elite and thought of the rest as country bumpkins, upstarts from who knows where. With Liuda, I had and still have a great relationship. We roomed together at the 1974 World Championships, she came to my 60th birthday. With Olya, I was, perhaps, even closer than with Liuda. Liuda is very disciplined, always put together. With Olya, we could fool around, approached everything more liberally, and even had a special training schedule. When Olya moved to America and I still worked in Belarus, she often called me and kept saying: you’re staying there, while it’s so good here. I responded: Olya, someone has to build gymnastics up in the country, since you left! I haven’t spoken to Olya in a while. For as long as I remember, she’s always lived on the clouds of her fame, never coming down. But it’s understandable: in 1972, she started a revolution, turned people to gymnastics, and all the attention was on her. No changes happened to her in that sense and Olya cannot accept that someone else besides her can be a champion and a star.

Q: Is it true that Korbut interfered with your warm-up at a competition on purpose and you fell of the beam?

A: I am now grateful to her – at that moment, she taught me how to compete on beam. It was 1974, when I was trying for the Worlds team for the first time. According to draw, I competed before Olya, so the same order was in the warm-up. I still had 5-10 seconds left until the end of my warm-up and suddenly Olya decided it was time for her to start and I needed to jump off. She jumped onto the beam at the moment when I did a salt and I almost landed on her. Of course, we wouldn’t collide because Olya saw everything and would be able to avoid it. But I got distracted and fell and got some scratches. So, when I was called to compete, I was angry: that’s it, I’ll go out and prove to Olya that I can do it well. Before beam, I was 13th, with almost no chance to be selected for Worlds. But Olya made me angry and got me into the right mindset: I competed so well on the rest of the events that I got onto the Worlds team in second place. So, I’m grateful to Olya, she taught me a lesson – and I think she doesn’t even remember this story. I loved and still love Olya, even though there are things that she shouldn’t do. Not everything should be told and shown. But she’s always been open.

Q: Are you talking about the story from her book in which Korbut called gymnasts – slaves of the coaches?

A: She released a stupid book about her relationship with Knysh, what happened and how. I called her then: Olya, I’m sorry, you can’t call us that. For me, the memory of my first coach Vladimir Baidin is so precious. But you piled us all together – I got angry and the rest of the girls did too. But Olya became so American that she wanted to sell the book and the scandal.

Q: In a few words, what was good about Baidin?

A: He was a Teacher with a capital T. Pedagogue. Psychologist. He was a former weightlifter and even without knowing the gymnastics technique, he knew intuitively how to deal with the talent. You need not to interfere with the talent and it will find its way in sports and everything else. Baidin helped me with that. He was like my second father and for some period of time he lived my life, same as his wife Galina Barkova. We worked together and got awards together, including monetary ones, that was implied. I always knew that part of the money I earned at competitions would go to Baidin and that was right. After Baidin I was coached by Nikolai Miligulo in Minsk – with him, I got to the all-around victory at the 1979 Worlds. This gold medal was his, I gave it to Miligulo.

Q: Do you remember your first trip abroad?

A: I was already an old lady – 14 years old, we went to Varna to the “Golden Sands” competition. By the way, it was there I met Comaneci’s coaches for the first time. Perhaps, Nadia also competed there, but I don’t remember her there. For me, it was a horrible competition and you’ll never guess why. For the first time in my life, I tried yogurt with fruit and ate bananas. I liked everything so much that I gained quite a few kilos – a regular Soviet kid got sweets – and this affected the competition. All my childhood, my dad kept telling me: if you study well, you’ll see Almaty, then Moscow, and then, maybe, other countries as well. At the time, even a trip to Moscow was a big deal to me and suddenly I was in Bulgaria.

Q: Soviet athletes always have stories about bringing something to sell abroad and bringing things back.

A: For us, it was usually jeans and computers. I kept being confused: what were those boxes the size of a tv? After getting a bit older, I understood that by brining a computer, people could earn a lot of money. I wouldn’t bring anything for sale because I didn’t really know how it was done. But I always brought gifts home. A trip abroad meant that you could buy anything as long as you had money. In England, there was a flea market near the hotel – an outdoor market that sold everything, from shoes to electronics. In Japan, there was Akihabara! Ohhhh, all the existing electronics was sold there. Baidin taught me to love music and clean sound: I would buy records of Beatles, Stevie Wonder, then Tina Turner and ABBA appeared. I still listen to the songs from my youth, I have a record collection at home. I had a really good music system, a needle with a special tip – I valued the highest sound quality, so that every bell and every drum was clear…

Q: Where were you when the USSR broke down?

A: I was working in Minsk, my position was called “USSR state coach for Belarus”, the position was set from Moscow. The breakdown didn’t happen overnight, it was a gradual process. Republics were moving further away from each other and that affected the team composition before competitions. I only started judging and those games were already happening: you can take that many people form this republic and that many from that republic – instructions from above regarding proportions.

Q: What did you think about the breakdown?

A: It was ok. People got independence they’d been waiting for. Each republic started speaking its own language, changing alphabets and street names, translating documents. It was not bad but it ended up being very expensive. Not just in terms of money, although it did cost money. In the middle of 80s, I was watching TV attentively and knew all the things happening in politics and economy. I thought: in five years, we can have at least America or Japan built here. Here’s what we thought: this is how people live there, they have Mercedeses and Fords, while we have Zhiguli and Zaporozhets, which weren’t even that easy to buy. [3] But we needed to wait, to be patient and we’d have it as good as in America. Those were small things that meant a lot back then. That’s why we were happy about the breakdown: oh, we’re independent now – such euphoria it was! And after so many years you think: it would have been better if we didn’t break down so radically, disconnected from each other so drastically, forgot the connection. The most important things are not Mercedeses and Fords, but relationships between people, fraternity, culture, traditions, and friendship. We lost a bit of it when we lost the USSR.

Q: Did you experience the deficit of the 90s personally?

A: I had a high salary and trips abroad, so I didn’t experience acute lack of things, but I know how hard it was for people. There was always not enough gas for the cars. Even buying eggs for New Year was a problem at the time. I went to the store to buy a loaf of bread and a pack of butter – I had to put a huge pack of money in my bag, food prices were in millions because of the crazy inflation. In order to get a certain amount of food, you had to show your passport – that was how the Belorussian government checked that the residents got the food and not the resellers.

Q: How did you move to the USA in the middle of the 90s?

A: I flew to America to help the Belorussian Olympic Committee to organize training camps for our athletes before the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. No one on the committee knew how to do it, that was the picture after the USSR’s breakdown, an independent republic without knowledge or experience. I got based in Minneapolis, took my daughter who’s also named Nellie with me – by that time, I and my second husband had already separated.

Q: Why Minneapolis?

A: At the time, Miligulo was already working there, he really helped me in the beginning. My daughter and I stayed in his house for a month after arriving; his family (especially his wife Tamara Modestovna) organized all our life, starting with meeting us at the airport. Later, I rented an apartment there. After the Olympics, I was elected to the technical committee of the International federation. The president of the commitee was an American at the time, she lived a three-hour-drive from me and she thought like this: a person from an ex-Soviet republic means a not disciplined one, doesn’t follow the rules. She had a prejudice against me, and she started looking for reasons to reproach me right away. Internet connection and teletype could become one of the reasons. I was afraid that I would have connection issues in Minsk, that I would start missing some documents and would be accused of not taking the job seriously. That was why I stayed in Minneapolis: internet and phone were working well and I was a three-hour-drive away from the boss. There would be no reason to say I was not doing a good job.

Q: How easy it is for a Soviet person to adjust in the States?

A: I’m a person of the world, I’ve been travelling around the world since I was 14, so my adjustment was soft and smooth. You get used to good things fast. And there are many good things in America in terms of quality of life, free market, an opportunities for growing and earning money. What gymnastics market could exist in the ex-Soviet countries? No market. Ex-Soviet republics had to survive somehow after the breakdown, sports weren’t a priority. So, our work was not needed there. But it was needed in America where gymnastics was growing rapidly. Our services were in such demand that you could work in a gym for 3-4 months in a year and travel the world for the rest of the year on what you earned. And you could even work not as a coach but as a consultant: come to one gym, then the next one, and this way, you visit everyone. The name helped a lot, I always had a place to work. That was how Americans grew on our gymnastics school. And not just ours, but also Romanian, Chinese, Bulgarian, they absorbed all the best things from what was brought to them.

Q: What was the first thing you did after moving there?

A: I looked for Russian speakers – through gymnastics people, I looked for everyone else. I quickly got myself a circle of people from different Soviet republics and dove into almost the same environment. And I’m still in that environment, I created my own little Soviet Union. Many live here like that – in ethnic or linguistic groups… The groups barely mix and they say for a reason that there’s a Chinatown, an Italian town, Baltic people – everyone is drawn to their people.

Q: Do you understand what American mentality is?

A: It has a lot of positive sides, things that ex-Soviet people can learn. The main thing is the cult of work, Americans are obsessed with it, it drives everything. Your salary, your wealth, your job show who you are. In the USSR, we were all more or less the same, so Soviet people valued words, friendship, and trust more. But here the culture of doing business is the most important thing. Perhaps, this cult was born because the country is young, it doesn’t have a long history and shared traditions. A lot of cultures were mixed and you can choose which one to follow.

Q: What parts of Soviet/Belorussian attitude to life you miss in the States and vice versa?

A: In the States, first of all, I miss people, culture of behavior and lifestyle that are dear to me. Belarus had the highest percentage of people with degrees in the Soviet Union and they are still learning and want to learn new things. In America, part of the population lives more simply: work-eat-sleep, such an idle lifestyle. On the other hand, in some ex-Soviet republics, there’s some immature thinking still left – people prefer to sit and wait for someone thing bring something to them. Let’s take gymnastics: in Belarus, parents wait for the government’s help, as if it has to pay for their children’s training. I think it’s a feature of the old mentality Americans don’t wait for things to be put into their open mouths. On the contrary, they roll up their sleeves, look for sponsors, come up with something. Their imagination works but we still have immaturity.

Q: What the USA think about Belarus?

A: There was a time when my name was discussed for elections to IOC. But then it was unofficially decided that it would not be desirable for the IOC to have representatives from countries where, as they think, there is no democracy. And that was it, my candidacy was out. The West thinks that there is no freedom of speech in Belarus. But I’ll tell you what: in some ex-Soviet republics, there is freedom of speech, but for 25 years, their factories have been shut down, pensions have not been paid, and people are out of work or have low salaries. I know this firsthand, my ex-husband’s relatives live in Kharkov [Ukraine]. But Belarus doesn’t have this crazy unemployment, there is some money. Life goes one, if perhaps poorly. I haven’t been to Minsk in a year, I can’t judge what is happening there now. My opinion will not be objective because I don’t have facts and examples, not enough information. I know for sure that someone always wants to pressure and affect such a small country like Belarus but it’s not so easy to do with Lukashenko. He has his own opinion about everything and he has a right to it. Let’s take the coronavirus – Belarus did not impose a lockdown. My opinion is that it’s very risky but, on the other hand, Sweden also didn’t do it. So, both Belarus and Sweden saw reasons to do it this way and not differently. If you compare Belarus to countries that imposed lockdowns, the difference in the proportion of diagnosed and deceased is not so large. But the economy continues to exist and is not fallen apart like in other countries. [4]

Q: What is your connection to Minsk now.

A: I am still a vice-chairman of the Belorussian Gymnastics Association, I visit periodically. Before the pandemic, I spent 180 days a year in work trips, and the rest of the time – 2-3 months in Minsk and 3-4 months in the USA. I have my gymnastics family in Minsk, those who I competed with – they’re now coaches or managers of clubs and organizations. When we celebrated my 60th birthday, we invited so many people from different sports – I knew them when I worked there in the 90s. Everyone came from my past to my present – it was so nice. There’s my history in Minsk which does not exist and will never exist in America. But my daughter is in America. Nellie’s studies, work, children – her family lives in Arizona. I now mostly live for her and my grandchildren.

Q: A few years ago you said that you were dreaming of opening a gymnastics club in the USA. Did you open it?

A: That was a plan for the future, for when I’ll be finished with the international business and will settle at home. I need to do something or I’d get bored to death. Back then I though about a club. But I changed my opinion now. I don’t want to open anything, considering what’s happening in American gymnastics – the Larry Nassar scandal has spread around the country. Now, gymnastics coaches are walking a tightrope – falling here or there. Where’s the line – whether a teacher is strict and demands discipline or he switched to rudeness and insults? The line is different for everyone and no one has described and separated those two parts yet. It’s a big task that hasn’t been solved. If it won’t be solved soon, all the coaches will retrain to do something else. Gymnastics will just disappear in the country. And it’s a big blow for everyone who is not part of the scandal: coaches, clubs, gyms. Partially, this situation is about money, too. There are absolutely many victims of this doctor but many just tried to attach themselves to it even though they’ve never worked with him. Another issue is retaliation which is what children and parents learned now. Some are retaliating against coaches. Imagine that a child got upset at a coach because he didn’t learn an element or didn’t achieve certain results. But the parents paid for the training. This may play a role years later: we invested so much and got nothing. We’ll retaliate against you for calling my daughter stupid and fat and making her stand in a corner ten years ago. Yes, even this will be remembered. And it’s dangerous for the sport. I’ll never open any club because I don’t know where gymnastics is going now. At most, I’ll open a gym for children’s general development, so that they would just play. We won’t strive for any big results. It costs a lot of energy and emotions and the consequences often lead to a fight between the coach and the athlete. And then the lawyers join.

Q: What does your daughter do?

A: She has two US degrees – in economics and medicine (plastic surgeon). I’m very proud of her, she grew up to be independent – she got both American and Belorussian high school diplomas. And I was never called to school here or there – she managed everything on her own. Now I’m thinking: what kind of mom am I, I was on the road all the time, I didn’t pay my daughter enough attention. On the other hand, it helped Nellie – she’s a fighter. She used to work in finance, then took a year off because of the crisis, and went into medicine. At first, she wanted to be a cardiologist, but then got interested in cosmetic surgery – it’s reconstructive surgery, not just plastic, in order to make people beautiful. She’s a third-year resident and assists in all the surgeries. She needed to study for almost six years. While combining studies and work, Nellie gave me my second grandson – we’re trying to manage time to do everything now.

Q: Your dad is a Sakhalin Korean [5] but you grew up in Kazakhstan, how did it happen?

A: When Korea was at war with Japan, my great-grandfather ended up being a Japanese prisoner. Then, Russia took that land from the Japanese and my great-grandfather was automatically in Russia. During Stalin times, grandpa was a pilot – a colonel or lieutenant colonel. And the whole family lived in Primorski Krai until Stalin organized a small resettlement of peoples. This happened over a few days: in Primorski Krai, people were taken from the streets, thrown into train cars, children and parents were separated – they took everyone they could catch and sent to Kazakhstan to work on the Virgin Lands. My dad was 7 or 8 when he and his brother were herded onto a train car without his parents or any other relatives. They were thrown out in Kyzylorda [Kazakhstan], just in the street. Somehow he and his brother managed to survive, dad didn’t really talk about it, they begged and all sorts of things happened to them. By accident, they met their aunt on the street, she took them in and raised them, she replaced their mom. Of course, for many years, my mom and dad looked for his parents and the parents looked for them. We found grandpa and grandma – dad’s parents – in Kyrgyzstan, in Frunze (it’s Bishkek now). This happened accidentally, with information travelling by word of mouth. I was about five years old when we visited for the first time.

Q: You were married to athletes twice. Can you talk about it?

A: My first marriage was to a gymnast, Volodya Achasov. We met after the 1976 Olympics, he came to visit me in Kazakhstan with my teammates. Volodya competed for the reserve national team, he was from Minsk, talented, elegant, handsome. Miligulo was his coach. He helped me to move to Belarus and coached us both after we got married. Volodya and I had a phone relationship for some time, then I was in the hospital with an ulcer and he would visit me in Moscow. Right from the hospital, we went to Minsk and got married in 1977. The marriage lasted until 1980. We lived fine for two years and then on and off: Volodya really liked to drink, it’s an illness common for many gymnasts. At the Moscow Olympics, I was distracted by problems going on with Volodya: I called him and got constantly upset. He promised everything would be ok but he continued being not quite sober.

Q: You met your second husband, a bike racer Valery Movchan at the closing ceremony in Moscow-1980?

A: Yes. By the way, he also won gold at the Games. The day after the competition we were all walking around the village, meeting people and celebrating. Someone introduced us but Valera had been interested in me for a while, he read about me in the papers. We got married in March of 1981.

Q: People remember that the wedding was really lavish.

Q: We spent all the Olympic prize money on it, both his and mind. It was the cost of a good Soviet car, that was the kind of a celebration we threw. Now, getting older, I’m thinking: why did we need to have such a wedding if we could go on a cruise instead? But that was Soviet mentality – what would people say? Because you need them to not say anything bad, to remember how great the celebration was. Now I’m more rational: I need to do what’s best for me and for my future.

Q: Have you met Nelly Furtado who was named after you?

A: Her full name is Nelly Kim Furtado. Such a story… I don’t know how to contact her. 10-15 years ago she came to Minneapolis with a concert, my American friends wrote her an email: Dear Nelly, you know, Nellie Kim is also here, it would be greet to meet, to bring both Nellies Kim, to introduced them to each other. But there’s surely some filter, I guess someone from her team thought this letter was a joke. But who know what’ll happen, perhaps, some journalist will tell her: dear, there’s this Nellie Kim, she lives basically across the road from you. You’re in Canada, she’s in Minneapolis, an hour flight.

Q: What is the injury that stayed with you forever after retiring?

A: There are two. The first one: when I was learning how to do a double salto, I landed on my stomach, bent back and a vertebra got fractured. It didn’t break completely, thank God, but it gives me reminders sometimes. The second one: once I landed on my head into a foam pit, but the pit was not deep, so my neck still hurts sometimes. Massage and swimming help; generally, exercises help, it’s just important not to slack off.

Q: Do you remember how you were the first one in the Olympic history to get a 10 on floor and vault in Montreal-1976?

A: On vault, Nadia competed before me and got 9.95. You’d think it wasn’t possible to go higher than that. But when I landed my attempt, I thought right away: that’s it, awesome, surely they’ll give this a 10? I was waiting only for a 10 and I got it. If you watch the video, everything is clear from my gestures, my body language says: I’m waiting for a 10 and nothing else. Even now when I watch that vault, I see that there are no deductions.

Q: In 2007, Russia awarded you Hero Star [6] – that’s surprising, considering you are not a Russian citizen.

A: I was so shocked, in a good way! We [the country] broke down, but the people and Russia remember those who competed for the Soviet country. Besides me, 3-5 people were awarded, from different sports and republics. When people rise above politics and value achievements and contributions, it’s is so nice that I’m still touched by it. Although it took some time to get that Star. I was invited to Moscow but couldn’t come – there were the European Championships at the time where I was judging. I only got the award through someone a few months later.

Q: What positions do you hold in gymnastics now?

A: Vice president of the International federation and president of the Ambassador commission. It’s a new commission, its task is to make the world better, in short. To raise the future generation through the experience of champions: we have to go to the youth and speak to them, give lessons and masterclasses, come to different countries, meet the press, the country’s government, and sponsors. It’s a way to help a country to get more attention for gymnastics, to help national federations.

Q: What do you do as a vice-president?

A: It’s pure politics, mostly representative work. I didn’t dream about it. When I worked as the technical committee president, work took 24 hours a day. I thought that the vice-president’s position would be the same: I’ll get a certain area of work with reports and responsibilities. But with the new president, we are responsible for everything and nothing and the president relies more on the bureaucrats at the office than on the people who were elected by national federations at the congress. I think that we lack government and transparency and gymnastics is going in not quite the right direction. You see, I’m a bad politician – saying such things a good politician would not. But what do I have to lose? Proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains – do you remember this expression? I’ve been in gymnastics since I was 9 years old, I know the sport inside out. When people from the outside come and start teaching and managing – this really affects me. I have to protect coaches and gymnastics; my pride and my titles don’t let me to put myself as low as some politicians in sports and outside sports do.

Q: What prevents you from retiring?

A: I’m already twice-retired, I have a sports pension since the 80s and according to Belorussian laws, I’m a pensioner as well. Soon, I’ll be a three-time pensioner – now in America, too. It’s a dark period in international gymnastics – scandals and court cases because of the situation with Nassar. In England and Switzerland, athletes also accused coaches of abuse and harassment and allegedly the federations didn’t react. Recently, our foundation punished a coach from one of the South-East countries for hitting a gymnast. Another issue that I’m not a fan of is one of the work methods of our president: to bring street sports, almost like track and field, to our federation – like parkour. In my opinion, it’s more of an extreme sport. The president’s goal is to make our federation the biggest one in the world, to get ahead of track and field and football while attracting young people. It’s nice when we try attracting young people but gymnastics shouldn’t lose its face and identity. I want to do a lot of things in the federation, to turn some things upside down. I want to leave when gymnastics comes back to its best days. Our sport used to be a symbol of something beautiful, kind, and interesting and people appreciated it.

[1]

Nellie Kim has a very rosy picture of forced displacement that happened before the 1980 Olympics. Tens of thousands of people were forced to leave the city, most of them were those deemed “asocial” by the government: homeless people, prostitutes, addicts, mentally ill, people with criminal record, dissidents, and often just people who committed the crime of being poor. Many of them were put in labor communes during the exile. Children were sent to summer camps and not allowed to come back until the end of the Olympics. For most of those people, the displacement was a traumatic event.

[2]

A junior lieutenant had one star on their shoulder boards, while a senior lieutenant has three. CSKA was (and still is) an army sports club. Gymnasts who compete for it are considered soldiers and get promoted according to their results. For example, Svetlana Khorkina and Alexey Nemova are both colonels and Khorkina currently works in the upper management of the CSKA club.

[3]

Zhiguli and Zaporozhets were the cheapest Soviet car brands (unlike Lada and especially Volga that were considered somewhat fancy). Cheap is still a relative term – Zaporozhets cost 4000 rubles in 70s-80s, while the average Soviet salary was 120 rubles. Different models of Zhiguli cost between 5000 and 6500. In order to buy a car, one had to sign up for it and wait even if they had the money (kind of like people sign up for a Birkin bag now). The could last up to 10 years if one did not have connections and at the end, they could be given a different model from the one they signed up for. People could only get on the list through their professional union at the workplace and spots were divided between different fields of work unevenly. So, in some workplaces, there were just no spots and people could not sign up, no matter how much they wanted a car. This likely did not apply to Kim, as sports higher-ups were in a relatively privileged position and the wait times on those lists were much shorter for them than for regular people.

[4]

It seems that Kim also has a relatively rose picture of what is happening in Belarus at the moment. Even though the number of cases if believed to be seriously downplayed, Belarus still has twice more cases than its neighboring Poland (four times the population of Belarus) that imposed a lockdown. In addition, there are constant protests against the current government that are caused both by the the way the government has been handing the virus and the poor economic situation. The protests have been accompanied by arrests of protesters, media, and political opponents of the current president.

[5]

Soviet Union had a substantial Korean minority. Most of them (Koryo-Saram) immigrated to Russian Far East and Siberia for economic reasons in late 19th and early 20th century. A separate group of Sakhalin Koreans was brought to Sakhalin Island as labor force by Japan in the first half of the 20th century. Shortly before the WWII, mass deportations of Koreans to Central Asia started, including the group of Koreans who lived in the Soviet part of Sakhalin. Most of ex-Soviet Korean community now live in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan).

[6]

It is not clear which award is referred to in this question. Normally, in Russia words “Hero Star” are used to call medals awarded to Heroes of Russian Federation or Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation. The second one was only established in 2013 and there is no record of Nellie Kim getting the first one (only a few people are awarded it every year and typical recipients are war heroes or people dealing with natural disasters, not athletes). In one interview, Kim said the award was given to her by an association of businessmen which indicates it was likely not a medal awarded by the Russian government.

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