Sovetsky Sport. July 30, 1998. The clamor of Moscow rudely interrupted the thread of our conversation - which had already lasted over two hours instead of the planned thirty to forty minutes - and to make matters worse, the voice recorder started acting up. I was loath to lose a single word of what my companion was saying, especially since we were discussing people whose names are nothing short of legendary. After all, Valentin Ivanovich and his wife, Sofia Ivanovna, have themselves inscribed their surname in letters of gold on the title page of the most brilliant volume of the "Russian Gymnastics Encyclopedia." Today, Olympic champion Valentin Muratov turns 70. Looking at the Muratovs, I found myself wondering: "I wonder what our current stars Svetlana Khorkina and Alexei Nemov will be like at that age? Will they retain that same youthful spark in their eyes, that spirited vigor and fine bearing, that optimism and zest for life?"
Q: Valentin Ivanovich, you have such an old Olga. Why don't you trade it in for a more modern model?
A: Why? Because we have no money. Where would two pensioners get the funds for a new car? Back when we were performing, we earned bonuses that were quite good by Soviet standards. We managed to furnish our apartment, buy a car, and build a dacha, but after we retired that source of income gradually dried up. Now, we try to make do with the old things that have served us so well.
Q: So, it seems that the lives of these distinguished pensioners are spent mainly at their garden plots?
A: In the summer, yes. Sometimes Sofia and I are invited to schools and Pioneer camps. We never turn down such opportunities to meet with children.
Q: And what do you tell them?
A: About how we got into sports, how we ended up in gymnastics, and what ultimately came of it...
Left fatherless in 1942 at the age of fourteen, Valentin - like many of his peers - went to work at a factory, using all his youthful energy to help the war effort and his mother, Marfa Matveyevna. To steer the teenagers away from the influence of criminals and street toughs, Viktor Alexandrovich Korolkov, a teacher at the school Valentin Muratov attended, organized several sports clubs.
Having taken up gymnastics at the relatively late age of 15, Valentin Muratov gradually rose to the forefront among his peers. After making it through a rigorous selection process, he earned a spot on the team that competed in the 1952 Olympic Games.
"Our team won its first-ever Olympic gold medal; Viktor Chukarin took gold while I finished fourth in the all-around. It seems no one expected such a result from me. But after that Olympics, my coach Konstantin Karakashyants and I began working even harder; I felt I could achieve much greater success."
In 1953, Valentin Muratov managed to defeat Viktor Chukarin himself at the USSR championships. As the country's top gymnast, he traveled to the "trial" European Championships of 1954.
"It wasn't even the European Championship yet - merely a prelude to it - but the weight of responsibility on my shoulders was immense. I was the country's sole representative, and a single mistake could dash all hopes of a medal. Furthermore, the political climate surrounding the Soviet delegation was hardly inspiring. The tournament was taking place in West Germany - a country where no Soviet athlete had set foot since the war. Then, just days before the competition began, the West German leader of a "freedom" movement was abducted by East German intelligence services - though it's possible he left voluntarily. Regardless, once we arrived, West German newspapers began publishing articles calling for the Russian gymnast Muratov to be taken hostage and exchanged for the kidnapped "freedom fighter."
The day before the competition, Valentin Muratov ran a fever; furthermore, the draw assigned him the number one spot.
Valentin Muratov was posting such results that his rivals could only watch in silence as a new gymnastics star rose to prominence on the European stage. The world championships took place that same year, and the opinion of all the experts, the main battle for the all-around title was expected to unfold between Viktor Chukarin and Valentin Muratov.
"My preparations for this championship took place under somewhat unusual circumstances. I didn't go to the training camp because our house in the Baumansky district had just been demolished; we had been relocated to a shack lacking hot water and other basic amenities, and there was no rush to provide us with a proper apartment. I trained on my own at the Dinamo gym, asking some local kids to score my routines - and to judge them strictly. Time passed, and finally Nikolai Romanov, the chairman of the Sports Committee, summoned me and said, "Go to the training camp, and after the world championships we'll get you an apartment." We arrived in Italy. Then came a new setback: Sonya dislocated her elbow while performing the vault. She sobbed all night out of sheer frustration at missing the world championships - and naturally, I couldn't sleep either, even though I was due to compete at eight the next morning. "It's OK," I told her, "the first gold medal will be ours!" In the end, we won the team competition, and I shared the all-around victory with Viktor Chukarin."
Q: Did you like Rome? And in general, when you've been abroad, have you had the chance to see the sights?
A: Certainly. After all, Rome is a veritable open-air museum. How could anyone visit the city without seeing St. Peter's Basilica? It's truly magnificent!
Q: Recently, when I asked a member of our 1998 national team about his impressions of his stay in St. Petersburg - where the European Championship was held - he replied: "The food was wonderful. The hotel was good..."
A: Oh, come now - that's unthinkable! Incidentally, this city played a special role in our family's history. It was at a competition held there in 1946 that I first saw Sofia Ivanovna - or simply Sonya back then - a thin, slight little girl.
Q: Valentin Ivanovich, let us in on the secret: how long did you court her?
A: Some time later I found myself in the Dinamo gym. Pointing to a pretty young woman, I asked my friend Zhenya Korolkov, "Who is that?" "That's Sonya Poduzdova," he replied. "Look at that," I said, "how lovely that slip of a girl has grown up to be!" I walked her home - chatting away along the way - and then, working up some courage, I tried to kiss her; she covered her face with her hands and cried out, "No! That's how you get babies!" We were 18 or 19 at the time. After the war, what kind of sex education could there have been? Later, I asked Sonya to marry me several times, but she played hard to get - and besides, she had plenty of other admirers. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and told her that either we'd get married or I'd find someone else. She agreed, though she refused to tie the knot in May - she didn't want to be 'doomed for a life of misery' (a superstition based on the rhyme between the month's name and the Russian word for 'suffering'). Immediately after the wedding, we went on our "honeymoon" to the 1951 World Festival of Youth and Students. Sonya won a competition there but injured her leg during the exhibition performances. The doctors said she would have to give up gymnastics for at least a year. That's when we thought, "why not have a baby?" And so, in 1952, our son Sergei was born.
Q: Does he have any connection to sports?
A: Sergei himself is a Candidate for Master of Sports in gymnastics. He worked at CSKA alongside Sofia Ivanovna for a time and is now a school PE teacher. His wife is a former swimmer; they met at the Institute of Physical Education. Their eldest son, Alexander, practiced gymnastics for a while, while the younger one, Dmitry, currently does track and field, having previously tried both judo and karate. Only the youngest son, Andrei, has no connection to sports. He is a highly-skilled mechanic, a real craftsman.
Q: Valentin Ivanovich, how do you assess the work of the all-encompassing Leonid Arkaev? After all, you yourself headed our national teams for a full decade.
A: Yes, and that is why I understand him. I know many consider Arkaev too demanding, even overly harsh, as a leader but I, too, was once called 'the Fuhrer.' And what other choice is there when gymnasts break the rules? When Olympic champions, arriving at commercial competitions, allow themselves to perform half-heartedly simply because the prize money, you see, isn't high enough! Do the honor of the country and flag no longer matter?! Arkaev has a tough job. It was always difficult, and it's getting harder by the day. Rivals are improving rapidly, and keeping track of their progress is virtually impossible. But I'm glad that the lessons Leonid Arkaev learned during the year-round training camps I once organized for young gymnasts did not go to waste.
Q: So, what kind of training camps were those, and how do they differ from the modern camps at Round Lake?
A: After the Soviet team lost to the Japanese at the 1960 Olympics, I was appointed head coach and tasked with regaining our lost standing as quickly as possible. That was when the idea of a ten-month, year-round training camp emerged. We assembled a group of young gymnasts including Mikhail Voronin (whom foreign observers once described as brave like Shakhlin, confident like Chukarin, and elegant like Muratov, and who is now the president of the Dinamo Club); Yuri Sabirov (now a professor and Doctor of Sciences); Aman Shaniyazov (currently the rector of the Institute of Physical Culture in Turkmenistan); and Leonid Arkaev. I appointed Viktor Chukarin as senior coach, with Nikolai Nikolaevich Merkulov (one of my own early coaches) and Vladimir Smolevsky serving as his assistants. In 1961, we brought back a video recorder from Japan. It was likely one of the very first in the country. The guys found it incredibly fascinating; after performing a routine they would immediately sit down in front of the TV and pick out all their errors. Later, we began recording our rivals' performances using this 'spy' technology.
As I said goodbye to Valentin Ivanovich, I promised to return to this cozy little apartment in a year's time for the jubilee of Olympic champion Sofia Ivanovna Muratova.
Olga Alekseeva