Tourishcheva: In 1972, we were sent off as if we went to war

Legendary Soviet gymnast Liudmila Tourishcheva and her husband, an Olympic champion in track Valeriy Borzov recently visited Minsk to attend the European Games and talked to Sport.tut.by about their careers, life during the Soviet times, and how the elite sports are different nowadays.

Q: Lidumila Ivanovna, how many times have you been to Minsk?

Liudmila Tourishcheva: It’s hard to say. I remember that I was preparing for the 1972 Olympics in Minsk, in the Palace of Sports. The first secretary of the Belorussian republic’s communist party Petr Masherov provided us with unique conditions.

Q: What was unique about it?

LT: If you ask economics experts how much renting an arena costs for an hour or two… And we spend a whole month in the Palace of Sports! That is, there were no concerts, nothing else held there during that period. It was just us, which made a significant contribution to the team’s success.

Q: In another interview, you recalled how Soviet gymnasts were trained before the 1972 Olympics in Munich: “We were charged with examples from the war time. I will never forget how they said that Munich is a nazi lair and we won there [during the war]. And if you, all of the members of the Soviet team, will not win there, it will mean, you are criminals.”

LT: That’s right. In Minsk, during the preparation for the Games all the war generals visited us. The war veterans told us: we won and now you have to win. We were taken to the Great Patriotic War Museum, to the Mound of Glory. We were sent off as if we went to war, just a sports war. Such environment put psychological pressure on us. I personally felt how it interfered with my performance, it constrained my movements. It was thought that I, as the gymnastics team captain, could not let the country down and come back without the planned medal. When I became the all-around champion, that is, I reach my goal, I was not able to sleep at night. I felt completely drained, as if water was poured out of the bucket. You don’t feel your arms or legs. I don’t know where I found the energy. I guess it was because of my patriotism.

Q: Patriotism and not propaganda?

LT: Yes. I was given bags of letters from fans. People wrote me that they were cheering for me and hoping [for medals]. I’m not joking! At night, before the final day of competition, trying to gather strength, I re-read the letters and thought – how could I let my fans down?

Q: Tomas Bach called you the most beautiful grandma in the world. Can you explain?

LT: Olympic champions understand each other. IOC is a big international family, it’s really true.

Q: How many grandchildren do you have?

A: Three, all boys. The oldest is 11, the middle is 8, and the youngest is five. How come Tomas knows about them? Each of the boys has been to the Olympic Games, practically at 1.5 years old for the first time. Back then they didn’t understand how cool it was, but they came to Rio in 2016 with an understanding of what Olympics are. The boys speak English and aren’t afraid to talk. Sometimes they even said hello to the IOC president.

Q: Bach is German, though.

A: Today, we see life in a different way, not how it was under the influence of the Soviet propaganda. The borders had opened and we saw that there are intelligent people on the other side.

Q: At the FSU countries, you can sometimes see cars with stickers like “To Berlin” or “We can repeat [the victory]”.

Valeriy Borzov: There’s a saying that every mind has its limits. “To Berlin” and “We can repeat” is extremely dumb. I’m not sure if a person with such stickers on their car knows what nazism is.

LT: And what war is. I’m very sensitive about our war veterans. The word “victory” truly means a lot to us. Our fathers and grandfathers were sleep-deprived and starving, fighting during bad weather. Why would you repeat this? When the Soviet Union with its special ideology broke down, there was a vacuum. People were lost. Do what you want. Now we understand that the Virgin Lands Campaign was wrong, but for our generation is was a reason for pride! And what were people supposed to strive for after the USSR broke down? They didn’t know. You could watch movies, drink beer and use profane language. The ability to do whatever we wanted shocked us. We couldn’t do anything. The ideology disappeared and it no longer exists now. Politicians are fighting for power without thinking about the young generation, without providing them with a direction. Young people figure out their goals on their own and most often, after high school, they decide to leave the country and go to a place where you can achieve your goals and be confident about your future. Unfortunately, we don’t have that confidence in Ukraine. It’s a problem. The older generation tells the young professionals explicitly: “Leave! There’s no future here!”

Q: You’re saying that war is scary but Ukraine is living with the war now.

LT: War causes everyone pain of losses and anxieties.

Q: Valeriy Fillipovich, in September, Minsk will host a track and field competition between Europe and USA. It’s an attempt to revive the USSR-USA competition format and you participated in such competitions. Were they like war to you?

VB: Liuda gave you an approximate recollection but I’ll tell you the exact words of the propaganda and agitation instructor from the party before the Soviet team left to the Munich Games: “You are going to the nazi lair and don’t you come back without the victory”. Of course, that was too much. You shouldn’t say things like that. By the way, we brought 50 gold medals from Munich which, surprisingly, matched the 50 years from the forming of the Soviet Union. Coming back to your question, the 1970 USSR-USA competition in Leningrad decided my destiny. Winning over the black athletes gave me additional confidence. I knew that such victories are a prediction for the 1972 Olympic Games and that winning gold would be realistic. In 1971, at the same USSR-USA competition, but in Berkley, I won over all the American sprinters while the stadium was completely silent. The American fans sat with their mouths open and their athletes became afraid. And what happened in Munich? Two American sprinters were late for the 100-meter race. Tabloids asked me whether I could consider myself the fastest man in the world after that. After winning the 200-meter race I asked them if now they considered me the fastest in the world, since all the strongest athletes took part in the race. And that tabloid journalist said “Yes”.

Q: For the past ten years, Usaine Bolt has been the main track and field start and the fastest man on the planet. So, you’re kind of like Bolt from the 1970s, right?

VB: I was the star and, I think, the face of the track and field sports.

Q: Bolt thinks that no one will beat his 100-meter record – 9.58 seconds – for another 15-20 years. Do you think a human body has resources to beat this time?

VB: Bolt managed to achieve his result. I’m not going to say more.

Q: Did you get emotional when our Yulya Nesterenko won at the 2004 Games, while competing against black sprinters?

VB: It was a surprise as well. One of the most sensitive topics in the sport is “innocent until proven guilty”. I know for sure, that, starting at the 1968 Games, countries began to use pharmaceutical support. Elite American sport began looking for a competitive advantage for their athletes.

Q: Are you implying that you were one of the last sprinters who won because of their natural characteristics?

VB: Look at my photos from those years and take a photo of any modern sprinters. You’ll understand who’s a grass-fed chicken and who’s a broiler. That’s obvious!

Q: Lukashenko [the President of Belarus] is saying that salo is the best doping.

VB: I agree. It gives energy, it’s a national product – yes, we eat it with potatoes, but that’s less important.

Q: How did you manage to achieve such high speed?

A: Thanks to my intellect and many years of technical preparation.

Q: You got married in 1977 and recently celebrated forty years of marriage.

VB: It wasn’t a big celebration. We’re the kind of people who, after turning 50, don’t have big parties. A wedding anniversary is a private matter, just for the family. It’s the same as for everyone: we’ve spent time from the wedding until today getting adjusted to each other. We’ll fight, we’ll make up. We’re talking about the fact that in order to keep your family together, you need to know how to step back.

Q: Is it hard for an athlete?

VB: We’re used to powering through. Athletic skills are transferred to all life aspects – work, family relationships, and the behaviour in general. We’re used to not having days off. What are those things? If we need to work at night – well, ok. Athletic principles also got transferred into the daily life, for example, this one: all or nothing.

LT: The sport developed our endurance, resilience and the desire to strive for the maximum, while calmly accepting the real results. There emotional outbursts sometimes, but the head is at work more often – it’s better to keep quiet, to wait and only then say something. That’s how we handle the situations at home and in our inner circle.

Q: The harassment scandals touching Belorussian artistic gymnastics are breaking hearts. In 2017, Tatiana Gutsu said that Vitaly Scherbo allegedly raped her in 1991. In 2018, Olga Korbut accused her coach Ronald Knysh of rape on tv. What do you feel during such moments?

LT: If there was no scandal then [when it happened], it means there shouldn’t be one now. It was needed to claim this when it happened – go scream! I have not witnessed harassment and I’m hurt when such things come up while talking events in artistic gymnastics from more than 40 years ago. It’s not the alleged participants who are hurt by the harassment accusations but everyone around them.

VB: Exactly. Confessions about sexual harassments are fashionable now and, as it turned out, everyone harassed everyone at some point.

Q: Olga Korbut also auctioned off her Olympic medals. The Munich-1972 gold was valued at $66,000 and altogether, Korbut got $229,200 for her medals.

LT: I think, it was $138,000.

VB: That was the sum after paying the taxes. Actually, we talked to Nellie Kim about it just on Sunday.

Q: So, you’re discussing this topic?

VB: Yes, we touched it.

LT: I wonder whether Olga really needed the money so urgently or she needed for people to start talking about her again? When people forget her, she starts doing something about it.

Q: Liudmila Ivanova, is your competition with Korbut in the 1970s comparable to the competition between Viktoria Azarenka and and Serena Williams in modern-day tennis?

LT: Those who want to compare can do that. Olya was a representative of a new generation of gymnastics, while I was close to retirement. Olya had fresh new elements in her routines. She practice a wonderful smile with her coach. She knew how to talk to the fans. No matter how loud the fans and the media were when talking about Olga Korbut, I calmed myself down with the words: “The sport is not a show, it’s a competition. The results will put everyone in their places.” Olga never managed to beat me in the all-around, she was always second. Jealousy? I was never worried about it. The sport means that when the competition is strong, the training has passion, you want to achieve your goal and not to let competitors get ahead of you, that’s it. And about me not smiling, I can say that I didn’t work for the fans, I worked for my country, my coach, and myself. Everyone knew that I was going to retire after 1976 and asked me: “Why are you retiring? You’re doing great.” I thought: “Thank God, they’re saying this.” The fans just didn’t know what injuries I had – fractures in my arm, leg, spine. They didn’t know what I could do and what I already couldn’t.

VB: Being likeable for the media plays a significant role in sports. Olya had results and the way she was promoted matched the public’s need for a new hero. Small, pigtails, tears, [Korbut] salt – this combination was liked by the fans. Olya was popular then and her image is still working for her, despite the fact that she spoiled it a bit [with the rape claims]. She’s on trend which is what Americans like.

Q: Would you sell your medals?

LT: We don’t have such a need. These meals are dear to us, they were earned with hard work. We have children and grandchildren who are proud of the achievements of their grandparents.

VB: I don’t know why Olga sold her medals. Did she really need the money? Although, I guess, our 14 medals could sell for a lot of money.

Q: Andrey Aryamnov, an Olympic champion in weightlifting, estimated that his gold medal from Beijing would cost about $300,000.

LT: The price depends on the name, the competition, the sport and its popularity. If collectors are interested in the medal, the price will be high. A billionaire would not mind spending a million of a medal that belongs to their favourite athlete. Still, we see our medals as memories from the time when we were competing, not as material goods. For a long time, our medals were stored in a box on the farthest shelf. And the we felt nostalgic. Now, you can find videos of my routines on Youtube and it’s really interesting to watch them. Valeriy decided to make an exhibition stand for our medals with a list: national, European, World and Olympic medals, badges, and awards. The exhibition took almost a whole room. I have nine Olympic medals, Valeriy has five. The two of us have eleven World medals. And the national medals – who’s even counting?

Q: How did you start working as managers in Ukrainian sports after the Soviet Union broke down?

VB: I wouldn’t say we started from ruins. The sports infrastructure was inherited from the USSR. Our task was to preserve the centralised training system financed by the state budget. This was the key issue. We could switch to club or university systems but the centralisation was the most important thing what we and, I think, Belarus, too, managed to preserve.

Q: How was the funding in the 1990s?

VB: The state ended up in a situation where the main economic got changed. First, we needed to speed up the economy. I remember how in the period between 1991 and 1993, we lacks foreign currency. But dealing with the international federations and going to international competitions all required foreign currency. People can claim that the sports do not get enough funding, but the national economy finances the system. However much money the economy gives to the sports, that’s the sum that needs to be managed, according to priorities. For example, 70% of the budget goes to the sports that bring Olympic medals and World and European medals in the Olympic sports. 30% goes to the non-Olympic sports. This approach brought Ukraine to the 9th place in the medal count in Atlanta in 1996. That was our starting point. Were all those medals the product of the Ukrainian system? Partially, yes. The rest was also the inheritance from the Soviet Union. We need to be objective, we did not start from scratch. In the beginning of the 1990s, Ukraine had a good coaching potential at an average level. Some coaches also prepared outstanding athletes. If you compare us to East Germany where sports were managed at the level of national politics, they had many more international elite athletes than we have now or had in the past. So, we have something to strive for – through coaching and improving the technical aspects. The second problem of our sport is patriotism, oddly enough. The commercialization of the sport led to the erosion of patriotism. Athletes start wondering – to participate in the national championships or to go to a competition with prize money. And they’re leaning towards that [money] direction, after all, get it?

LT: Valeriy is talking about the state approach to the development of the sports. But for me, the beginning of the 1990s professionally was starting the gymnastics federation in Ukraine. We needed to organize everything from scratch – to form a national team, to work on preparing the reserves, to ensure that the sport has the equipment. And, of course, there was the issue of how to earn money if we’re not producing anything. We looked for sponsors. In the beginning, it was really hard to find them, we managed to do it thanks to our efforts and names. A matter of special pride for me is that right after the USSR’s breakdown, I managed to get beautiful professional uniforms with “Ukraine” written on them. We did it faster than the huge Russia that still had all the resources. The Russians came to the first European Championships in artistic gymnastics in warm-ups with USSR written on them… In the 1990s, we saw a lot of coaches leaving because the borders had been opened and there weren’t that many opportunities for the coaches in Ukraine. Thanks to persuasion and enthusiasm (I was near the team and asked the guys to wait a year or two), our leading coaches stayed and, at the end, headed the national Ukrainian team. The 1996 Olympics showed that our work produced good results. Lilia Podkopayeva became the all-around champion, the men’s team won bronze and our federation won seven medals altogether.

Q: Belarus also has a strong tradition in artistic gymnastics. After Olga Korbut, we had such stars as Vitaly Shcherbo, Ivan Ivankov, and Svetlana Boginskaya. How can you explain the fact that we don’t have athletes like that anymore.

LT: The explanation is along what Valeriy and I have already said. When we come to Belarus, we are happy to see great athletic centers. Talented coaches and pupils can achieve high results even in worse conditions. You have great conditions for working, there are children, and only one component of success is missing – talented coaches. They never materialised because they likely all left. Everyone needs to feed their families. All things being equal, patriotism takes a secondary role, when you can get a bit more money for the same work and have a good quality of life. I’ve never judged coaches who chose to leave their country. I only regretted that we couldn’t create such conditions for them at home.

VB: Talking about artistic gymnastics in Belarus, we suggested a good coach – Oleg Ostapenko. Alas, there’s not material to work with – juniors who went through basic preparation. The kids on the national team where the training is very intensive often get injured because of the gaps in the basics. Here’s an athlete who’s been working all his life and some man who’s called a “coach” or a “state manager” did not prepare him for the elite sport. In sports, you have to work non-stop and keep preparing strong young coaches and the reserve for the team. You have to build a pyramid where one or two highest-level coaches are at the top, five are at the middle level and ten are at the basic level. When you have such a pyramid, you’re fine, but when one level falls off, the whole construction breaks down and you get “dead spots” in the history of the sport.

LT: Fortunately, in the Ukrainian artistic gymnastics, not all the strong coaches left, so we still have results, we have a medalists at the Olympic and World level. It’s not a lot but the traditions are still continued.

Q: Korbut, Scherbo, Ivankov, and Boginskaya are all in the USA. Why did you stay in Ukraine?

LT: We belong to a different generation, I think. We were raised to really love our homeland. It gave us an opportunity to become who we are now. We have to give it all our energy, to transfer our experience to the young ones. We’re happy with what we managed to do, with our life. We’re fine financially. We hope and dream that the life in our countries, Belarus and Ukraine, will become a bit better.

VB: Talking about immigration, I’d say that we didn’t want to and it’s too late. I can’t live abroad for long. What about friends? Connections? Also, we were dealing with governmental issues – we were ministers and presidents of national federations for a long time. But those who couldn’t find their place in their country left.

Q: Do you feel guilty about it?

A: There’s no fault of the government here, although you can’t say we didn’t participate in this process. You could keep the coaches by giving them a salary for $2,000. Is it possible now in Belarus? In Ukraine, you can’t pay a coach $2,000. The state of the economy and the legal system won’t allow to pay as much as coaches earn abroad – from $2,000 to $10,000. So, at the end, we are participating in the process of the erosion of the coaching staff, but we can’t fix the situation. The economy won’t allow us. We’re not at fault.

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