Category: 1972

Categories
1972 Interviews & Profiles Judging Controversy WAG

1972: Jackie Fie’s Thoughts on Judging

How did one of the top U.S. judges perceive her profession in 1972? 

Before the Munich Olympics, several newspapers printed profiles of Jackie Fie, who would later go on to become the president of the Women’s Technical Committee. Fie didn’t hold back in her statements. She confessed that judges had to show some favoritism towards their gymnasts “on the battlefield.”

“If you’re not going to go in there and fight for your kids, there’s something wrong with you,” she says. “I don’t think anyone is going to outright cheat, but you have to be lenient in judging your own team. 

“If there’s a question in your mind whether one of your girls is worth 9.2 or 9.3, you’re going to give the 9.3—because you know that every other country is going to do the same for its girls.” 

That’s just a little teaser of what you can find below… 

Jackie Fie, via the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame
Continue reading “1972: Jackie Fie’s Thoughts on Judging”
Categories
1972 FIG Bulletin WAG

1972: The Women’s Technical Committee’s Report on the Munich Olympics

In 1972, Berthe Villancher stepped down as the president of the Women’s Technical Committee (WTC), but she gave one final report on the Olympic Games in Munich. 

All in all, she was pleased with the progress on floor and uneven bars. Vault was a different story. She was the most worried about this apparatus, noting that it had fallen into a “rut” and that the WTC would need to study that apparatus closely.

Reminder #1: The WTC followed through. Prior to the 1974 World Championships, the WTC changed the requirements for vault finals — as did the 1975 Code of Points.

Reminder #2: Men’s gymnastics had its own vaulting crisis after the 1968 Olympics.

As for the judging in Munich, Villancher felt that there was partiality shown towards gymnasts with “a name,” and she alluded to the emotional nature of the women’s uneven bars final. 

My thought bubble: The emotional nature of the uneven bars final could be a veiled reference to the tight competition between Janz and Korbut and to what some believed was the impartiality of Sylvia Hlavacek, who, according to the Soviet press, was to be sanctioned after the competition. (If she was sanctioned, it did not last long, as Hlavacek was a judge at the 1974 World Championships.)

Tourischeva, 1972 Olympics
Continue reading “1972: The Women’s Technical Committee’s Report on the Munich Olympics”
Categories
1972 1973 Interviews & Profiles Romania WAG

1972/3: Early Interviews with Nadia Comăneci

Long before the 1976 Olympics, the Romanian press — in both Romanian and Hungarian — started to print interviews with and profiles of Nadia Comăneci. 

Below, you’ll find translations of a small collection of interviews and profiles from 1972 and 1973. Each one is interesting in its own right. For example, you can find an early comparison with Olga Korbut — something that would continue to crop up in the press for years after. In that same article, the author questions if too much was expected of the prodigy at too young of an age — an ongoing question in the sport of gymnastics. There’s even an article titled, “We should not expect everything only from Nadia Comăneci.”

All in all, the articles portray Comăneci as a wunderkind, whose skill is routinely described in supernatural, if not religious, terms, with the word “miracle” being routinely employed to describe her accomplishments.

Sportul, June 15, 1972

As you’ll see in the first profile printed about Comăneci, the Romanian press erased her first coach, Marcel Duncan, from Comăneci’s story right from the start.
Continue reading “1972/3: Early Interviews with Nadia Comăneci”
Categories
1972 1973 MAG Romania USSR WAG

1972/3: Comăneci Wins the All-Around in Dual Meets with the USSR

In 1972 and 1973, the Romania juniors competed against the Soviet juniors in dual meets. In both years, Comăneci won the all-around.

In other words, long before the Montreal Olympics, the Soviets knew they would be up against stiff competition. In fact, Larisa Latynina, the head coach of the Soviet team, would refer to Comăneci as the “Romanian Korbut” after the 1973 Friendship Cup.

Here are the Romanian news reports on the dual meets. Plus, there’s an early profile of Comăneci included at the end.

Reminder: In 1972, the Soviet newspapers didn’t know how to spell Comăneci’s surname.

Sportul, April 22, 1973
Continue reading “1972/3: Comăneci Wins the All-Around in Dual Meets with the USSR”
Categories
1972 China MAG WAG

1972: Yang Mingming and Jiang Shaoyi Win Chinese Nationals

The 1972 Chinese Nationals were the first major domestic competition after the Cultural Revolution. Launched in 1966 by Mao Zedong, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution — in very broad terms — set out to preserve Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalism.

From a sports perspective, the revolution majorly impacted China’s national and international involvement. For starters, most of the national teams were disbanded. Gymnastics was an exception:

Apart from table tennis, gymnastics, and athletics teams, most national teams were disbanded.

Fong and Zhouxiang, “Sport in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–1976)”

What follows is a translation of an article about the national championships in 1972. Unfortunately, the scores were not listed, but we can see which gymnasts would form the core of Chinese gymnastics as they started to compete in more international competitions in the early 1970s.

Reminder: The Chinese gymnastics team traveled to Yugoslavia and Romania before it held its first official national championships in 1972. 

Among the juniors, you might notice a familiar name: Li Yuejiu, who tied for gold on floor exercise at the 1981 World Championships and who currently coaches in the United States.

Jiang Shaoyi, China
Jiang Shaoyi
Continue reading “1972: Yang Mingming and Jiang Shaoyi Win Chinese Nationals”
Categories
1972 China MAG Romania WAG

1972: China Travels to Romania for a Dual Meet

In June of 1971, Nicolae Ceauşescu, the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party, paid a visit to China and North Korea. 

One year later, Chinese gymnasts went to Romania for a competition.

Note: We’ll see a similar timeline between the U.S. and China with Nixon going to China in 1972 and Chinese gymnasts traveling to the United States in 1973.

While the Chinese men’s team defeated the Romanian team, the Chinese women were not as successful. After the competition, the teams held joint training sessions, during which the Chinese gymnasts learned the compulsory routines. Apparently, Cai Huanzong’s routines looked even better than the figures used to depict the compulsory routines.

Note: After Ceauşescu’s visit to China, he published the “July Theses,” which ended a period of ideological diversity and cultural liberalization in Romania. A list of banned books, for example, was reinstated. Academics debate the extent to which Chinese political thought influenced Ceauşescu.

Note #2: China withdrew from the FIG in 1964, so this meet was important because it showed that China was dipping its toes back into the waters of international competition after a long absence.

Source: Sportul, July 19, 1972
Continue reading “1972: China Travels to Romania for a Dual Meet”
Categories
1972 MAG USSR WAG

1972: Bichukina First, Kim Second at the Soviet National Youth Championships

Months after Olga Korbut captivated the world’s attention in Munich, there was a national youth championship in Zaporizhzhia, and a familiar name — Nellie Kim — took second behind Raisa Bichukina, a much less familiar name to today’s gymnastics fans. (Kim was leading after the preliminary competitions.)

The path from junior elite to senior elite is never easy. Of the top juniors in 1972, only Kim and Grozdova would make the 1976 Olympic team. On the men’s side, several of the top juniors in 1972 would go on to have successful senior careers, including Marchenko, Markelov, and Dityatin.

What fascinates me about this event is the coverage. It raises hard questions: Was the nation in too much of a hurry to have young gymnasts competing on a major stage? Are they forcing gymnasts to compete too much? At the same time, the articles marvel at the gymnasts’ talent. The next generation of women’s artistic gymnasts was performing the most difficult skills in the world, including the same vault that Nikolai Andrianov competed in Munich.

Datum: 25.07.1980 Copyright: imago/Sven Simon Nelli Kim (USSR)
Continue reading “1972: Bichukina First, Kim Second at the Soviet National Youth Championships”
Categories
1972 Chunichi Cup Japan MAG WAG

1972: Andrianov and Janz Win the Chunichi Cup

At the end of 1972, many of the stars of the Olympics headed to Japan for a series of competitions, including the Chunichi Cup. Not surprisingly, most of the competitors were not as sharp as they were in Munich. This was particularly true of the Soviet women who had to do a tour in West Germany right after the Olympics.

But the Chunichi Cup did give some gymnasts the opportunity to shine. For example, Nina Dronova, an alternate for the Soviet team and the Chunichi Cup champion in 1970 and 1971, took silver.

The competition also gave gymnasts the opportunity to try out new skills. U.S. gymnast Joan Moore added a back tuck to her beam routine, a skill that only Korbut and her teammate Nancy Thies competed at the Olympics.

Here’s a glimpse of what happened in Nagoya, Japan.

Continue reading “1972: Andrianov and Janz Win the Chunichi Cup”
Categories
1972 Gym Nerd Trivia Olympics

1972: Gym Nerd Trivia about the Olympic Games

If you’re reading this site, you’re. a gym nerd at heart. Now, it’s time to see just how much of a gym nerd you are. Take the quiz below to find out.

Continue reading “1972: Gym Nerd Trivia about the Olympic Games”
Categories
1972 East Germany Olympics

1972: East Germany’s Takeaways from the Munich Olympics

After the Olympics, Deutsches Sportecho, the main sports newspaper of East Germany, published an article about the gymnastics competition. Its general conclusion: There were no surprises at the Olympics. Everything happened as expected. The socialist countries dominated the women’s competition while the Japanese team dominated the men’s competition.

The article did offer a small critique of the judging in the women’s competition:

Judges are only human, and they valued the grace of Olga Korbut or the suppleness of Ludmilla Tourischeva more highly than the pronounced athleticism of Karin Janz – with the same difficulty and the same precision.

What follows is a translation of the article.

Copyright: imago/Colorsport, Karin Janz, Vault
Continue reading “1972: East Germany’s Takeaways from the Munich Olympics”