At the 1969 European Championships, Mikhail Voronin was looking ahead to the competition between Japan and the Soviet Union. However, he didn’t end up competing in the meet.
But you know who did compete? 14-year-old Olga Korbut.
And you know who won the meet? Olga Korbut.
Let’s take a look at what happened and watch some of her routines…
On May 24 and 25, 1969, just months after the Olympic Games, the top male gymnasts in Europe gathered in Warsaw for the European Championships. As expected, the Soviet gymnasts dominated the meet.
In 1969, the rules for the European Championships changed. Each country could send three gymnasts instead of two. (Meanwhile, in women’s artistic gymnastics, countries continued to send only two gymnasts to the European Championships.) But the Soviet gymnasts were unable to sweep the all-around podium because Lisitsky had a major break on pommel horse.
Let’s take a look at what happened…
Gymnasts from nineteen countries traveled to Landskrona, Sweden to participate in the European Championships on Saturday, May 16, 1969 and Sunday, May 17, 1969.
The stars of the 1968 Olympics — Čáslavská, Petrik, Voronina, Kuchinskaya — did not attend (or had retired), which gave 17-year-old Karin Janz a chance to shine and win four of the five gold medals.
Before the FIG created its World Cup circuit and before the American Cup came into existence, the U.S. tried to organize an annual World Cup.
On Saturday, April 26, 1969, gymnasts from Canada, Finland, Japan, Yugoslavia, and the United States gathered in Long Beach, California for the World Cup.
Here’s more information about the event.
In 1928, the 15th FIG Congress took place on August 6 in Amsterdam. It was the first meeting of the delegates after the death of Nicolas J. Cupérus, the man who led the FIG for 43 years.
The minutes are fascinating because they show the struggle between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) to define the sport of gymnastics.
Is pole vault a gymnastics event or an athletics event?
In the view of the FIG, it was a gymnastics event, especially since it required the use of apparatus. (It was also part of Jahn’s seminal text, Die Deutsche Turnkunst, though that point did not come up in conversations.) But the IOC didn’t share the FIG’s view.
*Cue dramatic music.*
Reminder: Track and field events like pole vault were part of the World Championships (originally called the International Tournament) until 1950. Here’s a full list of events during the major men’s gymnastics competitions from 1896 until 1950.
Separate from the organizing committee’s Official Report on the 1928 Olympics, the FIG published its own booklet on the gymnastics competition in Amsterdam. What follows is a translation of the report, as well as every score from every judge at the competition — both men’s and women’s.
As you’ll see by the amount of space dedicated to women’s gymnastics in the report, the FIG remained focused primarily on men’s gymnastics.
Let’s dive in.
At the 1930 World Championships (originally called the International Tournament), tragedy struck. Yugoslav gymnast Anton Malej fell during his rings routine and was taken to the hospital, where he later died on July 15, 1930. He was 23.
Despite the accident, the Yugoslav gymnasts kept competing and took home third place. Fellow countryman Josip Primožič won the all-around.
The results, though, should have an asterisk next to them, given that the gymnasts didn’t compete in five of the scheduled events.
The competition was originally scheduled for July 12 and 14, 1930. However, rainy weather on July 14 resulted in a premature end to the competition, and the organizers decided to count only the scores from the first day (i.e. the scores from the apparatus gymnastics portion of the competition).
Reminder: This was not the first time that inclement weather caused problems during the International Tournament. In 1911, Cupérus, the FIG President at the time, wanted the athletes to compete in inclement weather rather than end the competition or finish it the next day. And two years prior, at the 1928 Olympics, the FIG was upset that the stadium was not prepared for inclement weather.
During the first day of the 1930 International Tournament, Anton Malej fell from the rings and later died in the hospital. His injury happened on a rather simple skill: an inverted hang. Here’s how Pierre Hentgès, Sr., recalled the injury:
On the rings, during a simple part — an inverted pike hang — the young Yugoslavian gymnast Anton Malej fell so badly that he had to be taken to the hospital immediately for professional treatment with a cervical vertebrae injury.
Olympische Turnkunst, December 1967.
An den Ringen, in einfachem Übungsteil aus dem Sturzhang, fiel der junge jugoslawische Turner Anton Malej so unglücklich, daß er sofort mit einer Halswirbelverletzung zu fachgerechter Behandlung ins Spital überführt werden mußte.
What follows is a translation of Malej’s obituary from Sokolski Glasnik (July 15, 1930).
To read more about the 1930 World Championships, head over to this post.
Coming into the 1926 International Tournament in Lyon, France, the Czechoslovak team had won three consecutive team titles at the International Tournament (1911, 1913, and 1922). Plus, they had won the team title at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. So, the 1926 World Championships (called the International Tournament at the time) were an opportunity to further demonstrate their superiority.
Here’s a quick summary of what happened on May 22 and 23, 1926, in Lyon, France.
Prior to 1922, the World Championships (originally called the International Tournament) were team-only events. But in Ljubljana, an individual all-around champion was finally named. Actually, there were co-champions: Šumi of Yugoslavia and Pecháček of Czechoslovakia.
Another major storyline: France almost missed the competition, arriving on the second day of the International Tournament.
Let’s dive into what happened…
