The members of the squad depicted listed here are a younger Tamara Lazakovitch (no signal of the whisky but, however very spirited), Ludmilla Tourischeva, who’s sweetly performed as a smiling however very critical younger girl, Larissa Petrik, Olga Karasova, Polina Astakhova (coach) and Zinaida Voronina.
They’re all so damned glamourous and charismatic; you would not think about that they had been sweating blood in coaching day by day, such was their ease and magnificence. The male coach swans out and in of the gymnasium like a peacock, making life and loss of life choices about gymnasts’ careers. Keep in mind, right now many of the gymnasts had been mature women, and a few of them had been even married to their coaches (Karasova) or to members of the boys’s workforce (Voronina, Petrik). Solely Tourischeva and Lazakovitch had been right now harmless younger women, as fairly and composed as lovely and glamourous.
Our Novenkaya is handled to some comparatively pleasant roughhousing by the hands of Lazakovitch on her first days with the workforce, however issues ultimately calm down. The gymnasts are typically pleasant, however heads flip every time a gymnast does her explicit keynote ‘efficiency’ on her greatest equipment.
The top flip, the eye that’s paid, is a type of reverential respect for the game, in addition to the gymnast, and it is fascinating that they’ve caught this environment, this inherent drama, within the format of a movie, within the screenplay of this movie. The Soviets, and the Russians, have at all times been skilled at creating an ‘environment’ round their gymnastics. I do not know if it is one thing they intentionally rehearse or plan, they usually solely do it once they know they’re completely on the peak, properly forward of the perfect. It was a type of rapt consideration between themselves, an instinctive sign to the remainder of the world to concentrate when it occurred, and I had forgotten about it till most just lately, once I watched Nagorny’s flooring train on the 2020 Olympics, and noticed how the coaches and gymnasts all gathered. It introduced a shiver to my backbone. Then I recognised it on this movie, too.
Which may not imply something to you if you happen to weren’t engaged with Soviet gymnastics when it was at its peak. You’ll simply must take my phrase for it: this movie could also be drama, however it’s no extra dramatic than the competitors and coaching itself. It is one thing that’s uniquely Russian, and I can not even correctly title it, it is one thing that you just really feel moderately than see, and upon getting felt it you’ll always remember it.
In the long run, Novenkaya is disenchanted as she is left off the workforce for the large competitors that they had been coaching for; I feel this was the Soviet nationwide championships. However her disappointment is later swept away as she wins a gold medal on the Olympics. We see footage of the particular gymnasts in motion on the Video games. That is the place we see Kuchinskaya, and the likeness between Novenkaya and Kuchinskaya turns into clear.
Early on, the movie contains some compelling pictures of junior gymnasts coaching in a neighborhood health club, the place Novenkaya is the perfect, and presumably earlier than she started coaching with the nationwide workforce. A few of the gymnasts have a badge of the sports activities society on their leotards, others have presumably not made the workforce but, so practice with out the badge. I have not been in a position to determine but which membership they’re coaching with; it isn’t Dynamo, Spartak, Trud, Lokomotiv or any of the opposite widespread groups you’d learn about, however maybe somebody can remark with the data if they’re within the learn about such issues?
The movie was created at a time when Soviet society was searching for heroes to encourage the achievement of labor and navy targets. The ethical message to our fellow residents is, maintain going even via disappointment; persevere and you’ll triumph. Gymnastically, the movie information a sporting type that was all magnificence and agile plasticity. Do not forget that many of those girls started life as dancers (Tourischeva, for instance, skilled in ballet earlier than being transferred into sports activities). Their lyrical motion units a nice distinction to the astonishing acrobatics, innovation and contortion of Olga Korbut, who was rising precisely on the time that this movie was being produced. The Soviets did not have the perfect gymnast on the earth on the time; that was Vera Caslavaska. Her period was adopted by the period of ‘Queen’ Tourischeva, however then Romania put a spanner within the works because the baby genius Comaneci grabbed the initiative. We’re seeing the tip of 1 period of gymnastics earlier than the brand new period emerged. What an enchanting time in world sport.
There are numerous of those sporting movies now accessible to see on Youtube and even if you cannot perceive the dialogue, a lot could be gleaned from the visible imagery.
