Sovetsky Sport. May 6, 1994. Profile. Yuri Korolev. Born August 25, 1962, in Vladimir. Spartak. Merited Master of Sports of the USSR. Two-time world all-around champion (1981, 1985), World Cup winner (1986), European champion in individual events (1981, 1983, 1987).
The last time I saw Korolev was in 1989 at the USSR Championships in Donetsk. Time seemed not to have touched him back then; at 27, he looked like a young lad - blond, light-eyes, with rosy cheeks - the very picture of the fairy-tale hero Ivan Tsarevich. And now, five years later - this time at the Russian Championships in Voronezh - we met again. Korolev had matured; "Yura" had become "Yuri Nikolayevich." Naturally, he was no longer tumbling on the mat. Instead, he sat at the judges' table with a stern, impassive expression. As Leonid Arkaev, President of the Russian Gymnastics Federation, noted, he handled his duties as head judge excellently.
Q: Yuri Nikolayevich, how did your life unfold after Donetsk?
A: My last major competition was in Donetsk. I finished fifth there but didn't make the team for the 1989 World Championships, so I stopped training and soon left for France at the invitation of a gymnastics club in Annecy. I kept up some training on my own, and even traveled to the US for the professional world championships. Unfortunately, I was injured during the floor exercise warm-up, tearing my Achilles tendon, which brought my competitive career to an end. At the end of 1991, I returned to my hometown of Vladimir and began working as a coach at my old school. I currently coach a group of boys who hold the First Class ranking.
Q: Tell me about yourself and your family, how you are living, and what you think of the situation in the country.
A: By today's standards, I have a large family. I married young. My wife is a trained nurse; at the time, she worked as a lab technician at the sanitary-epidemiological station. Our son Alyoshka was born in 1983, and our daughter Lenochka in 1986. Now, my wife is occupied with raising the children. We live on my salary. We have no savings - they were wiped out by the Gaidar reforms - but we're managing for now.
Q: Do you mean to say that the reforms were unnecessary?
A: Actually, I had realized the need for them back when I was a young man in the Komsomol. I felt in my heart that something was amiss in our lives, and I was waiting for change. That change began at the initiative of the CPSU, of which I was a member. I enthusiastically studied Mikhail Gorbachev's report, "October and Perestroika: The Revolution Continues." However, I soon noticed - and realized our General Secretary was being hypocritical - that the reforms seemed to be leading us in the wrong direction, resulting in destruction rather than creation. I recall someone saying that perestroika was like an airplane that had taken off without knowing if there was a landing strip at its destination... The process of destruction was deliberate and systematic from the very start, ultimately leading to the banning of the CPSU and the collapse of the USSR and the socialist bloc.
Q: Yuri Nikolayevich, over the years of your sports career, you visited many countries around the world and were able to see for yourself that people there, "across the pond," lived better than in the USSR.
A: I have indeed traveled a great deal, yet I've seen very little. And what can you really see from a bus window?
Q: All right. Let's look back at the past. How did you, a very young and little-known athlete, manage to become the all-around world champion in 1981?
A: Well, first of all, I wasn't exactly unknown. The judges knew me quite well. In 1979 and 1980, I won the all-around title at the "Druzhba" international tournament for young gymnasts from socialist countries; in 1980, I became the European junior all-around champion, and later won European titles in the floor exercise and on the rings, while placing second in the all-around.
Q: And how did you perform at subsequent world championships?
A: 1983 was an unsuccessful year, although the same could be said for our entire team. We lost to the Chinese gymnasts back then, and I had to settle for just one silver medal in the team event. In 1985, I became the all-around world champion for the second time, and in 1987 I finished second in the all-around. To this day, I am the only one who has competed in four world championships! I have a total of 13 world-level medals to my name. They say the Japanese gymnast Eizo Kenmotsu has more (15), as does Boris Shakhlin (14), but I hold the record for the most gold medals: 9.
Q: How did it happen that you didn't become an Olympian?
A: I wasn't ready for the Moscow Games. Soviet athletes didn't compete in the 1984 Olympics, and I was injured at the USSR championships prior to the 1988 Games.
Q: Why didn't you become the USSR all-around champion?
A: This serves, above all, as a testament to the immense prestige the title of USSR all-around champion held in the gloabl hierarchy. It seems, however, that the all-around world champions of 1981 were simply unlucky. After all, Olga Bicherova, an all-around world and European champion and World Cup winner, never became the USSR all-around champion, nor did she even win a national title in any individual apparatus event. I, on the other hand, managed to win titles in floor exercise, parallel bars, and horizontal bar.
Q: What was the most joyful and the saddest moment of your sports career?
A: Perhaps my most joyful performance was on the final apparatus, the pommel horse, at the 1981 world championships. My main rival for the all-around title was Bogdan Makuts. He performed on the horse before me, received a very high score, and was already being congratulated on his victory. When I stepped up to the horse, the arena fell silent, yet I felt as though I had grown wings; I literally soared over the apparatus. In the end, I beat Bogdan by a mere 25-thousandths of a point! My saddest memory, on the other hand, is from the 1987 world championships, when I lost to Dima Bilozerchev by that same margin of 25-thousandths, missing the chance to become a three-time all-around champion. And I had wanted it so badly!
Q: Many of your national teammates are currently working abroad. Have you thought about heading somewhere yourself?
A: Absolutely not! I have no intention of leaving the school that shaped me - the school that produced such outstanding athletes as Nikolai Andrianov and Vladimir Artemov. I feel a profound obligation to carry on the work to which the school's founder, the unforgettable Nikolai Grigorievich Tolkachev, dedicated his life. It's just like the song goes: "And I remain with you, my beloved homeland forever; I have no need for Turkish shores, nor do I need Africa..."
E. AVSENEV