It’s important to document the floor music used at major gymnastics competitions. It tells us a lot about the general cultural zeitgeist in the world, as well as what gymnasts and their coaches think the judges will or will not like.
Here are a few trends that emerged this year.
What’s it like to try to defend your Olympic all-around title? At the time of this writing, only two female gymnasts have done it: Larisa Latynina (1956, 1960) and Věra Čáslavská (1964, 1968). Many are betting that Simone Biles will become the third.
Below, I’ve translated a portion of Čáslavská’s The Road to Olympus (1972), in which Čáslavská recalled her quest to defend her all-around title in Mexico City. She discussed everything from the inane questions of journalists to rivalries to intimidation tactics to nerves to bad lighting in arenas to difficulty adjusting to the bars during podium training.
Enjoy this excerpt from her book!
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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.
Romania skipped the gymnastics competition at the 1968 Olympics in part because of its disappointing showing at the 1964 Olympics. Four years later, in 1972, the Romanian women finished sixth, just as they had at the 1964 Olympics. The Romanian men finished 7th — a major improvement over their 12th-place finish in Tokyo.
After the Olympic Games in Munich, the Romanian press tried to answer the questions:
What follows is a translation of a column from Sportul, published in the September 29, 1972 edition of the newspaper. The article looks at everything from body weight to the lack of good apparatus in the country.
At the end of Japan’s Official Report on the 1972 Olympics, the authors included a section that looked toward the future. They pinpointed areas where the Japanese men’s team needed to improve to stay ahead of the Soviet team, and they were hopeful because Kaneko Akitomo was part of the Technical Committee. Previously, they had felt at a geographic and linguistic disadvantage presumably because Japan is outside of Europe and Japanese is not a primary language of the FIG.
As for the women, the authors believed that Japan needed to go back to the basics and start over again.
In Voronin’s 1976 autobiography titled Number One (Первый номер), he reflects on his final Olympic Games. By his standards, he struggled during the Soviet competitions prior to the Olympics, and while in Munich, he injured his ankle. Arthur Gander refused to let him pull out of the all-around final, so he competed after receiving an injection that made him black out. (Note: Korbut also got an injection before the all-around final that caused her legs to go numb.)
In the end, the Soviet men’s team won two golds, three silvers, and one bronze. They had made progress in the two years between the Ljubljana World Championships and the Munich Olympics. But in the end, Voronin recognized that they were unable to put together a team that could match Japan’s team.
Here’s what else he said about Munich…
Note: Chapters of Voronin’s book were translated into Estonian for the newspaper Spordileht, and I have translated the text from Estonian into English. The following excerpts come from the February 8, 1978, February 10, 1978, and February 13, 1978 issues of Spordileht.
In 1972, there were no Soviet men’s artistic gymnasts on the all-around podium. Afterward, the Soviet press noted that the fight was not over. The Soviet gymnasts could still take home gold during the event finals, and indeed, they did. Nikolai Andrianov and Viktor Klimenko became Olympic champions on floor and pommel horse, respectively.
Here’s what the main Soviet sports newspaper wrote about the men’s artistic event finals. Though the Soviet and Japanese gymnasts were rivals, the press was quite complimentary towards the Japanese gymnasts, especially Tsukahara’s high bar routine.
On September 1, 1972, the gymnastics portion of the Olympic Games ended with the men’s event finals. It was largely a competition between the Japanese and Soviet gymnasts. Only three gymnasts made the finals from other countries: Köste of East Germany, W. Kubica of Poland, and Rohner of Switzerland.
The Munich Olympic Games were the first time that there was an all-around final. So, instead of competing for three days, the top gymnasts had to compete for four days. Some gymnasts like Kato qualified for every final, meaning they performed a total of 24 routines.
Let’s take a look at what happened.
In 1972, there was a change of the guard on the Women’s Technical Committee (WTC). Berthe Villancher, who had been the president of the WTC since 1956, finally stepped down. Valerie Nagy took her place.
Below, you can find Berthe Villancher’s thoughts on her final competition as the president of the Women’s Technical Committee, as well as what was top of mind for Valerie Nagy (Jenőné Nagy in Hungarian) when she was elected.
All in all, Villancher was pleased with how the 1972 Olympics turned out. Known for her interventions among the judges, she was happy that she did not have to intervene in as many judging controversies.
