Monday, August 9, 2010

History Lesson: The Soviet Slaughter at 1991 Worlds


In their last World Championships competing together, our Soviet girls brought their best to the West. Their team was so talented that it almost makes me appreciate open-ended scoring. There is no way they deserved to be anything less than 10 points ahead of the rest of the field. It is almost disgusting how good they all were. Try picking a weak link on this squad.

When fans sit around debating which mediocre Americans will make the World Team, it makes me long for the time when we would pray our favorites would make the latest Russian, Ukrainian or Soviet squad. After 2000, it all went to hell.

What was the average weight on this team? Their bodies all look to be sculpted by God. It is such a shame that the AA scoring was such a joke, because they deserved to dominate the entire meet. Lysenko's wrist injury killed what might've been a most glorious of championships for her in event finals.

As Dawes likes to say, the Soviets walked around the competition floor waiting to polish their latest gold medals. It is a crying shame that others were even allowed to touch equipment while they were competing.

Watch these and tell me you'd rather watch the Beijing Team Finals. Thought so.

Why couldn't they have just competed together forever? The would would've been better off had they simply remain the Unified Team.

Compulsories:
Svetlana Boginskaya- VT, UB, BB, FX
Oksana Chusovitina- VT, UB, BB, FX
Roza Galieva- VT, UB, BB, FX
Tatiana Gutsu- VT, UB, BB, FX
Natalia Kalinina- VT, UB, BB, FX
Tatiana Lysenko- VT, UB, BB, FX

Optionals:
Svetlana Boginskaya- VT, UB, BB, FX
Oksana Chusovitina- VT, UB, BB, FX
Roza Galieva- VT, UB, BB, FX
Tatiana Gutsu- VT, UB, BB, FX
Natalia Kalinina- VT, UB, BB, FX
Tatiana Lysenko- VT, UB, BB, FX

6 comments:

  1. Wow, one of the few times i've seen lysenko land her double layout well. Does anyone know why she didn't keep the double arabian?

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  2. Not sure. She went back to the double arabian in '93.

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  3. It took all of 10 seconds of watching the 91 compulsories on floor for me to see what floor ex used to be...sigh..they were real dancers.

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  4. Chusovitina even still looked like a woman at this meet. It is incredible. I saw shades of femininity from her.

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  5. Lysenko looks like she's practically wearing a full cast on her right leg. And she's still fantastic. Beyond being amazingly good, those girls were also tough. You get the sense they could wipe the competition floor with you, then take you out back and beat the hell out of you. All 85 pounds of them.

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  6. FWIW it was broken / dislocated fingers on UB EF transition which kept Lyssenko out of EFs. Chusi had taken her place in VT...

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