Category: European Championships

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1975 East Germany European Championships Romania WAG

“She Knows She Is Good”: An East German View of Nadia Comăneci in 1975

Even before Nadia Comăneci’s legendary performances at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, East German gymnastics officials had taken careful note of the Romanian teenager. Ellen Berger, the East German national team coach and a member of the FIG’s Women’s Technical Committee, was characteristically measured when asked whether Comăneci’s near sweep of the 1975 European Championships had surprised her. “No,” she said flatly. “We knew Nadia and were aware of her capabilities.” The sensation, Berger explained, was partly an artifact of the FIG’s age regulations, which had kept Comăneci off the international stage until the year she turned 14 — meaning the wider gymnastics world had simply not yet had the chance to see her.

What Berger did not withhold was her admiration for the quality of the performance itself. Comăneci ‘s routines, she observed, were extraordinarily difficult and executed with total confidence. More striking still was her psychological makeup: “She knows she is good, and nothing bothers her — not the audience, not her competitors, nothing at all.” Her one caveat was equally revealing: a single competition, she insisted, could not support sweeping conclusions. Ludmilla Tourischeva, she noted pointedly, remained one of the best gymnasts in the world. The subtext was clear — East Germany was not yet ready to concede the future to Romania.

Nadia Comăneci on the cover of Sportul‘s 1976 Almanac. Sportul was Romania’s main sports newspaper. The 1976 almanac covered the events of 1975.
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1975 European Championships Romania USSR WAG

“This Is Already a Different Comăneci”: How the USSR Reacted to Nadia Comăneci in Skien

The 1975 European Championships in Skien posed an unfamiliar problem for Soviet gymnastics.

For much of the previous decade, the hierarchy of women’s gymnastics had appeared relatively stable. The Soviet Union remained the dominant force in the sport. Rivals emerged and faded, but the broader order endured. Then, in May 1975, a thirteen-year-old Romanian named Nadia Comăneci arrived in Norway and defeated the Soviet stars.

Soviet coaches were already quite familiar with Comăneci, and Sovetsky Sport, the official sports newspaper of the USSR, had been following her progress before the European Championships. What makes the newspaper’s coverage worth reading is not its evaluation of her talent but the discussion her victory provoked. The European Championships did not settle a debate. They started one.

Nadia Comăneci, July 1975. Copyright: imago/Pressefoto Baumann

Note: This photo is not from the European Championships.
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1981 Age European Championships USSR WAG

Alla Misnik: The 13-Year-Old Doing the Gymnastics of the Future

In April 1981, a gymnast from Kharkov stepped onto the podium at Leningrad’s Yubileiny Sports Palace and won the USSR Cup in artistic gymnastics. Alla Misnik, training under coach Valentin Shumovsky, announced herself as one of Soviet gymnastics’ brightest new talents. Her uneven bars routine featured what Sovetsky Sport called “a magnificent cascade” of elements—a Tkachev, a Jaeger, clear-hip circles with pirouettes, a double-back dismount—forming what one judge described as “a routine of the future.”

A month later, Misnik traveled to Madrid for the 1981 European Championships. There, the Soviet Union’s leading gymnast did not win. She finished third in the all-around behind East Germany’s Maxi Gnauck and Romania’s Cristina Grigoraș, and earned silver medals on uneven bars and floor exercise. For a debut at a major international championship, the results were impressive.

Yet they were results that required explanation in the Soviet press. Why had the Soviet team failed to win a single gold medal? Internationally, the outcome ignited debates about the direction of women’s gymnastics. Was it really a women’s sport anymore?

What went largely unremarked at the time, however, was a more basic fact: Misnik was too young to be competing in Madrid at all.

Misnik on the cover of International Gymnast
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East Germany European Championships MAG Politics West Germany

1975: Wolfgang Thüne Defects from East Germany with the Help of Eberhard Gienger

At the 1975 European Championships in Bern, Switzerland, Nikolai Andrianov defeated Eberhard Gienger by a mere 0.050. But the real drama didn’t happen on the competition floor; it unfolded behind the scenes. East German gymnast Wolfgang Thüne, the 1974 silver medalist on high bar, vanished during the post-competition banquet, defecting to the West in an act that stunned his teammates and confused officials. For decades, whispers swirled. Had he hitchhiked across the border?

It wasn’t until 1999 that the truth came out. Eberhard Gienger, the legendary gymnast behind the eponymous high bar release move, had been keeping a secret for 24 years. It was he who had secretly driven Thüne across the border, and their story began in the most unlikely of places: in a bathroom.

Datum: 17.09.1975, Eberhard Gienger (Left), Wolfgang Thüne (Right)
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1977 European Championships Evolution FIG Bulletin FIG Congress

1977: Introducing Eight Gymnasts in Event Finals

At the 1977 European Championships, something new happened. Instead of there being six gymnasts in event finals, which had been the norm for nearly two decades, there were eight gymnasts in each apparatus final.

I know, it doesn’t sound like a major change, but the FIG lagged behind other sports like track and field, which started allowing eight finalists instead of six in the 1960s. 

But catching up to other sports wasn’t the only reason for including more gymnasts in finals. It was also to offer more opportunity to other athletes or, as it was phrased, to offer “greater equality of chance.” Arthur Gander and the executive committee, however, weren’t in favor of this proposal.

Let’s dive into what the FIG bulletins said…

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1973 European Championships WAG

1973: Tourischeva Sweeps the Women’s European Championships

Only four gymnasts have swept the medals at the European Championships: Latynina in 1957, Čáslavská in 1965 and 1967, Tourischeva in 1973, and Boginskaya in 1990. All legends in their own right. And, as we’ll see below, Tourischeva won the floor title even with a fall during finals.

Looking back on this competition, vault was one of the more interesting events because much innovation was happening. Korbut introduced a full twist onto the horse. (Unfortunately, she was too injured to compete in finals and scratched after trying to sprint down the runway.)

Additionally, Tsukaharas, the vault that Tsukahara Mitsuo popularized in 1970, were becoming popular in women’s gymnastics. While others had competed the skill previously, Tourischeva, the reigning World and Olympic all-around champion, was now doing it, helping the vault seem less “masculine,” as one newspaper described it during the 1973 University Games.

Fun Trivia Fact: While the media coverage focused on Tourischeva and Korbut, neither gymnast received the highest score during the competition. Angelika Hellmann of East Germany did — with a 9.7 during the uneven bars finals.

So, with no further ado, here’s what happened at the 1973 European Championships in London.

Olga Korbut and Ludmila Tourischeva take a walk around Wembley Stadium, London, 21st October 1973.
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1973 European Championships MAG

1973: Klimenko Wins the All-Around at the European Championships

At the 1971 European Championships, Viktor Klimenko won the all-around. Then, while warming up for the event finals on floor, he tore his Achilles tendon. He managed to recover in time to win gold on pommel horse, silver on vault, and a silver with the Soviet team in Munich. One year later, in 1973, Klimenko once again found himself on top of the all-around podium at the European Championships in Grenoble, France.

But it was his teammate Nikolai Andrianov who pushed the sport’s difficulty level forward by debuting new elements: a double pike on floor as well as a full-twisting double back off rings. (Reminder: Tsukahara had competed a full-twisting double back off high bar in 1972, and one year later, Andrianov was doing the same dismount off rings.)

Also of note: Bernd Effing performed an Arabian 1 ¾ on floor in Grenoble, helping to usher in decades of roll-out skills (and concussions). And Eberhard Gienger added his own spin to Tsukahara’s full-twisting double back off high bar by performing the twist on the first flip.

While the gymnastics was exciting at the men’s European Championships, the organization of the competition left much to be desired. For example, they played the wrong national anthem for Eberhard Gienger. It happened during a historic medal ceremony where Gienger from West Germany and Klaus Köste from East Germany stood side by side on the podium.

Here’s a bit more about the 1973 European Championships in Grenoble.

Eberhard Gienger (BR Deutschland) mit einem Skelett Eberhard Gienger BR Germany with a Skeleton

Note: I was looking for photos of the historic medal ceremony, but I couldn’t locate any. This is what I found instead.
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1965 1967 Books Czechoslovakia European Championships

Čáslavská Remembers the 1967 Euros in “The Road to Olympus”

After Čáslavská’s disappointment in her performance in Dortmund, she debated if she should take a break from competing. Perhaps she had become too familiar to the judges, one coach suggested. (At one point in this section, Čáslavská recalls how the overly familiar Latynina was ignored during a press conference with Larisa Petrik in 1965.)

To make gymnastics exciting again, she and her coach Matlochová reworked all her routines, adding new elements to every routine. They made practice fun, with Matlochová riding a broom and trying to distract Čáslavská during her beam routines. They set her routines and training cues to music.

Čáslavská went on to compete at the 1967 European Championships. But Čáslavská had her doubts at the beginning of the competition. After a rough bar routine during the first rotation and an exceptional performance by Kuchinskaya on beam, Čáslavská was unsure if she would be able to defend her title. But right before beam, one of her superstitions happened. Someone broke a glass, and she had her lucky shards of glass. 

In the end, she became the only gymnast in the history of the European Championships to sweep all five events twice. She even scored two perfect 10.0s during the event finals.

Another interesting tidbit: For someone who ended up on top of the podium many times, Čáslavská disliked being on top of the podium. It made her feel awkward. 

So, with no further ado, here’s how Čáslavská recalls the 1967 European Championships in her autobiography from 1972.

Note: You can read more about the 1967 European Championships here and here.

European gymnastics championships, Vera Caslavska being jockeyed, May 28, 1967, championships, gymnastics, The Netherlands
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1965 European Championships Interviews & Profiles USSR WAG

1965: An Interview with Latynina before the European Championships

The gymnastics world had many questions for Latynina in the lead-up to the 1965 European Championships.

What did Latynina think about taking second place to Věra Čáslavská at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics? What did she think about taking second place to Larisa Petrik at the 1964 USSR Championships? Did she think she still had a chance to win the European Championships in 1965? What did she think of the current state of gymnastics with its ever-increasing difficulty, as epitomized by Čáslavská?

These are some of the questions that Latynina addressed in an interview printed in the Estonian sports magazine Spordileht on May 14, 1965, right before the European Championships in Sofia, where Latynina finished second behind Čáslavská.

Copyright: imago/United Archives; European Gymnastics Championships, 1965, Sofia, Bulgaria. Pictured on the podium are gold medalist Věra Čáslavská of Czechoslovakia, silver medalist Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union (left), and bronze medalist Radochla of the German Democratic Republic. 22nd May 1965.
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1971 European Championships WAG

1971: Co-Champions at the Women’s European Championships

A peculiar situation arose at the 1971 European Championships in Minsk. Two gymnasts tied for the all-around title, but there was only one cup. Though the organizers did not break the tie for first place, they had to decide who should take home the European cup.

Let’s take a look at what happened in Minsk on Saturday, October 16, and Sunday, October 17.

Reminder: The men’s European Championships were much earlier in the year, in May.

The arena in Minsk
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