 |
Nina Apollonovna Ponomareva(nee Romashkova; April 27, pos. Smychka, Sverdlovsk region, RSFSR, USSR - August 19, Moscow, Russia) - Soviet athlete, discus thrower, eight-time champion of the USSR, the first Olympic champion in the history of the USSR, two-time Olympic champion, world record holder.
Biography
Nina Romashkova was born in the village of Smychka, Sverdlovsk Region (now a district of the city of Nizhny Tagil), where her parents were in exile. Father - Apollon Vasilyevich - painter-artist, later - a participant in the Great Patriotic War. Mother - Anna Fedorovna. In 1936, the family settled in the city of Essentuki, Stavropol Territory.
Nina Romashkova got into sports, becoming the third in the Komsomol cross-country of the Spartakiad of the Industrial Cooperation, the order for participation in which came to the cooperative grocery store in the city of Essentuki, where nineteen-year-old Nina worked. In 1948, Nina entered and began to seriously engage in athletics. Initially, she tried her hand at running disciplines, later she retrained as a discus thrower.
Immediately after the Olympic Games, at competitions in Odessa, the athlete set a world record by sending a disk of 53 meters 61 centimeters. From 1952 to 1956, and then in 1958 and 1959 - the champion of the USSR. At the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, she won a bronze medal: the reason for the uncertain performance was an injury received the day before the final competition. But at the 1960 Roman Olympics, Romashkova again celebrated success, becoming the champion with a new Olympic record - 55 meters 10 centimeters. At the 1964 games in Tokyo, Nina Ponomareva was only 11th.
In 1966, the athlete switched to coaching, moved to Kyiv, where she trained young athletes.
Since 1998, Nina Apollonovna Ponomareva has lived in Moscow. in 2013, her bronze bust was unveiled on the Walk of Fame of CSKA, and the CSKA track and field athletics sports school was named after her. .
Passed away August 18, 2016. She was buried at the Khovansky cemetery in Moscow on August 22, 2016. . On September 26, 2016, Ponomareva's ashes were reburied at the memorial cemetery of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in Mytishchi, thus she became the first athlete to be buried there. The reburial took place on the initiative of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. A bust will be erected at the burial site.
Family
Awards
Write a review on the article "Ponomareva, Nina Apollonovna"
Notes
Literature
Based on materials V. Malakhov. One hundred great Olympic champions. - Moscow: Veche, 2006. - S. 144-149. - ISBN 5-9533-1078-1.
Links
- (Polish)
An excerpt characterizing Ponomareva, Nina Apollonovna
- Where do you need it? You say! one of them asked again.- I'm in Mozhaisk.
- You, became, sir?
- Yes.
- What's your name?
- Pyotr Kirillovich.
- Well, Pyotr Kirillovich, let's go, we'll take you. In complete darkness, the soldiers, together with Pierre, went to Mozhaisk.
The roosters were already crowing when they reached Mozhaisk and began to climb the steep city mountain. Pierre walked along with the soldiers, completely forgetting that his inn was below the mountain and that he had already passed it. He would not have remembered this (he was in such a state of bewilderment) if his bereator had not run into him on the half of the mountain, who went to look for him around the city and returned back to his inn. The landlord recognized Pierre by his hat, which shone white in the darkness.
“Your Excellency,” he said, “we are desperate. What are you walking? Where are you, please!
“Oh yes,” said Pierre.
The soldiers paused.
Well, did you find yours? one of them said.
- Well, goodbye! Pyotr Kirillovich, it seems? Farewell, Pyotr Kirillovich! other voices said.
“Goodbye,” said Pierre and went with his bereator to the inn.
"We must give them!" thought Pierre, reaching for his pocket. “No, don’t,” a voice told him.
There was no room in the upper rooms of the inn: everyone was busy. Pierre went into the yard and, covering himself with his head, lay down in his carriage.
As soon as Pierre laid his head on the pillow, he felt that he was falling asleep; but suddenly, with the clarity of almost reality, a boom, boom, boom of shots was heard, groans, screams, the slap of shells were heard, there was a smell of blood and gunpowder, and a feeling of horror, fear of death seized him. He opened his eyes in fear and lifted his head from under his overcoat. Everything was quiet outside. Only at the gate, talking to the janitor and slapping through the mud, was some kind of orderly. Above Pierre's head, under the dark underside of the plank canopy, doves fluttered from the movement he made while rising. A peaceful, joyful for Pierre at that moment, strong smell of an inn, the smell of hay, manure and tar was poured throughout the courtyard. Between the two black awnings one could see a clear starry sky.
“Thank God that this is no more,” thought Pierre, again closing his head. “Oh, how terrible fear is, and how shamefully I gave myself up to it! And they…they were firm, calm all the time, to the very end…” he thought. In Pierre's understanding, they were soldiers - those who were on the battery, and those who fed him, and those who prayed to the icon. They - these strange, hitherto unknown to him, they were clearly and sharply separated in his thoughts from all other people.
“To be a soldier, just a soldier! thought Pierre, falling asleep. – Enter this common life with your whole being, imbue with what makes them so. But how to throw off all this superfluous, diabolical, all the burden of this external person? One time I could be it. I could run away from my father as I wished. Even after the duel with Dolokhov, I could have been sent as a soldier.” And in Pierre's imagination flashed a dinner at the club where he summoned Dolokhov, and a benefactor in Torzhok. And now Pierre is presented with a solemn dining box. This lodge takes place in the English Club. And someone familiar, close, dear, is sitting at the end of the table. Yes it is! This is a benefactor. “Yes, he died? thought Pierre. - Yes, he died; but I didn't know he was alive. And how sorry I am that he died, and how glad I am that he is alive again! On one side of the table sat Anatole, Dolokhov, Nesvitsky, Denisov and others like him (the category of these people was just as clearly defined in Pierre’s soul in a dream, as was the category of those people whom he called them), and these people, Anatole, Dolokhov loudly shouted, sang; but behind their cry was heard the voice of the benefactor, speaking incessantly, and the sound of his words was as significant and continuous as the roar of the battlefield, but it was pleasant and comforting. Pierre did not understand what the benefactor was saying, but he knew (the category of thoughts was just as clear in the dream) that the benefactor spoke of goodness, of the possibility of being what they were. And they from all sides, with their simple, kind, firm faces, surrounded the benefactor. But although they were kind, they did not look at Pierre, did not know him. Pierre wanted to draw their attention to himself and say. He got up, but at the same instant his legs became cold and bare.
He felt ashamed, and he covered his legs with his hand, from which the overcoat really fell off. For a moment, Pierre, adjusting his overcoat, opened his eyes and saw the same sheds, pillars, courtyard, but all this was now bluish, light and covered with sparkles of dew or frost.
“Dawn,” thought Pierre. “But that's not it. I need to listen to and understand the words of the benefactor.” He again covered himself with his overcoat, but there was no longer any dining box or benefactor. There were only thoughts clearly expressed in words, thoughts that someone said or Pierre himself changed his mind.
Pierre, later recalling these thoughts, despite the fact that they were caused by the impressions of that day, was convinced that someone outside of him was telling them to him. Never, as it seemed to him, was he in reality able to think and express his thoughts like that.
“War is the most difficult subjection of human freedom to the laws of God,” said the voice. – Simplicity is obedience to God; you won't get away from it. And they are simple. They don't say, but they do. The spoken word is silver, and the unspoken is golden. A person cannot own anything while he is afraid of death. And whoever is not afraid of her, everything belongs to him. If there were no suffering, a person would not know the boundaries of himself, would not know himself. The most difficult thing (Pierre continued to think or hear in a dream) is to be able to combine in his soul the meaning of everything. Connect everything? Pierre said to himself. No, don't connect. You can’t connect thoughts, but to connect all these thoughts - that’s what you need! Yes, you need to match, you need to match! Pierre repeated to himself with inner delight, feeling that with these, and only with these words, what he wants to express is expressed, and the whole question that torments him is resolved.
- Yes, you need to pair, it's time to pair.
- It is necessary to harness, it is time to harness, Your Excellency! Your Excellency, - repeated a voice, - it is necessary to harness, it's time to harness ...
It was the voice of the bereytor who woke up Pierre. The sun beat right in Pierre's face. He glanced at the dirty inn, in the middle of which, near the well, the soldiers were watering the thin horses, from which carts rode out through the gates. Pierre turned away in disgust and, closing his eyes, hurriedly fell back into the seat of the carriage. “No, I don’t want this, I don’t want to see and understand this, I want to understand what was revealed to me during sleep. One more second and I would understand everything. What am I to do? Conjugate, but how to conjugate everything? And Pierre felt with horror that the whole meaning of what he saw and thought in a dream was destroyed.
The bereator, the coachman and the janitor told Pierre that an officer had arrived with the news that the French had moved near Mozhaisk and that ours were leaving.
Pierre got up and, having ordered to lay down and catch up with himself, went on foot through the city.
The troops went out and left about ten thousand wounded. These wounded could be seen in the yards and in the windows of houses and crowded in the streets. On the streets near the carts that were supposed to take away the wounded, screams, curses and blows were heard. Pierre gave the wheelchair that had overtaken him to a wounded general he knew and went with him to Moscow. Dear Pierre found out about the death of his brother-in-law and about the death of Prince Andrei.
Nina Ponomareva (Romashkova) has died. PHOTO
Nina Ponomareva (Romashkova), the first Soviet Olympic champion, died at the age of 87.
At the age of 87, the famous Soviet athlete, the first Soviet Olympic champion Nina Apollonovna Ponomareva (Romashkova) passed away.
The death of the two-time Olympic champion in athletics is reported on the official website of the Russian Ministry of Sports.
Nina Ponomareva was the first in the USSR to win an Olympic medal: at the Summer Games in Helsinki in 1952, she won gold in the discus throw competition.
Nina Ponomareva (Romashkova)
Nina Apollonovna Ponomareva (Romashkova) was born on April 27, 1929 in the village. Bow of the Sverdlovsk region in the barracks of the Gulag camp.
Father - Apollon Vasilyevich - a painter-artist, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, was arrested for his grandfather Nina - regent of the church. Mother - Anna Fedorovna - was repressed as the daughter of a kulak.
“I was little, I didn’t know that I was serving time with my parents. I thought enthusiasts, of their own free will, went to cut down the forest,” she said.
In 1936, when the parents were released, the family settled in the city of Essentuki, Stavropol Territory.
Nina Romashkova got into sports, becoming the third in the Komsomol cross-country of the Spartakiad of the Industrial Cooperation, the order for participation in which came to the cooperative grocery store in the city of Essentuki, where nineteen-year-old Nina worked.
In 1948, Nina entered the Stavropol Pedagogical Institute and began to seriously engage in athletics. Initially, she tried her hand at running disciplines, later she retrained as a discus thrower.
In 1949 she became the bronze medalist of the USSR championship, moved to Moscow. At the USSR championship in 1950 she won a silver medal, in 1951 she won the gold medal of the USSR championship on the third attempt.
In 1952, Romashkova went to the debut Olympic Games in Helsinki for the USSR team and excelled with a new Olympic record - 51 m 02 cm. This was the first Olympic gold medal for the USSR. Two more Soviet discus throwers, Nina Dumbadze and Elizaveta Bagryantseva, climbed the pedestal with her.
Thus, Nina Romashkova became an Olympic champion in just three years of hard training, for which she received the title of "iron lady" in the foreign press. Romashkova's Olympic gold medal was the first in the history of Soviet sports.
Immediately after the Olympic Games, at competitions in Odessa, the athlete set a world record by sending a disk of 53 meters 61 centimeters.
From 1952 to 1956, and then in 1958 and 1959, Nina Romashkova was the champion of the USSR.
At the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, she won a bronze medal: the reason for the uncertain performance was an injury received the day before the final competition.
But at the Roman Olympic Games in 1960, Romashkova again celebrated success, becoming the champion with a new Olympic record - 55 meters 10 centimeters.
At the 1964 games in Tokyo, Nina Romashkova was only 11th.
In 1966, the athlete switched to coaching, moved to Kyiv, where she trained young athletes.
- In your time, there was no doping, Nina Apollonovna?
- Unless they drink coffee for cheerfulness. By the way, there was a whole story with coffee. It was taken for sale abroad, in the Union a kilogram cost 50 rubles. Once Igor Ter-Ovanesyan got burned on this. When the hotel staged a raid, he rushed to cover his tracks.
- How?
- It would not be good to pour these grains into the toilet, and he - in the bidet. Everything is floating. It would be fine, I brought a kilogram with me. So he has half a pound! Soon the price of coffee rose to 200 rubles. It makes no sense to carry.
- Football player Viktor Serebryanikov said that in the 60s the players of the USSR national team were given pills.
“Sometimes they gave us some. But we had no idea why. The active introduction of doping began when I had already left the sport. She worked as a coach in a Kiev boarding school. The kids grew up, she warned: if I find out that someone is eating anabolic steroids, before giving birth to a child, I will step on one foot, pull out the other!
- Did it work?
- How noticeable?
- Certainly. When you take poison, it definitely reflects on your face.
Hat theft incident
In 1956, Ponomareva, who was in London, was accused of stealing hats from a department store on Oxford Street. The incident caused a major international scandal.
- Were you accused of trying to steal a lady's hat?
- Not hats - headband with feathers. Priced at 5 pounds. It happened at the match between the USSR and Great Britain - two years after the scandal with Kuts. Only now I am the victim. On the weekend brought to the mall. I chose the headband, put it in my bag, paid. And she ran to look for a girlfriend who bought a dress.
Unexpectedly invited into the room. I thought fitting room, girlfriend there. But this is a completely different room. I remember looking at the clock - 10.22. A minute later the emergency door opens, a young man enters, says in Russian: "I am a translator." I answer: "No one has yet asked who I am, where I come from. Maybe I'm French? Or German?" I was finally convinced that this was a provocation when a local newspaper was brought to dinner. With a cap on the front page: "Ponomaryova is not going to Melbourne! The Soviet team is losing the gold medal!"
- However.
- They called the representative of the embassy. They began to sort things out, in vain they asked me to remove the cash register in order to find a check that I had not taken ... And in the UK, the law: any controversial issue is resolved in court. But when Khrushchev was reported to Moscow, he snapped: "No trials! Our man does not belong there!" When I didn't show up there the next day, I was automatically arrested. After that, she could take refuge only in our embassy.
– What were you doing there?
- Cried all day long. Itched on nervous grounds. Then she began to sit up. At 27 years old! Since then, I have kept my hair short. You have no idea what I went through… The apartment and our embassy were separated by a road. So under the windows at night reporters, onlookers were on duty, they set up tents. They made sure I didn't slip.
- How did it end?
“I still had to go to court. With a lawyer, papers. There it turned out that not only was I not guilty of anything, but they also cheated me out of three shillings. The question is closed. But I asked to be sent home by steamboat.
- Why?
- I was afraid that they would suddenly be removed from the flight or they would come up with some other dirty trick? Better by sea, then a ship went from London to Leningrad. She returned to it. And almost immediately - to Melbourne. There, at the airport, a crowd met, from all sides it rushed: "Nina! Nina!" I burst into tears. I understood that people were waiting for me and thought: if I fly to the Olympics, it means that I’m definitely not guilty of anything.
Nina Apollonovna Ponomareva(nee Romashkova; April 27, 1929, pos. Smychka, Sverdlovsk region, RSFSR, USSR - August 19, 2016, Moscow, Russia) - Soviet athlete, discus thrower, eight-time champion of the USSR, the first Olympic champion in the history of the USSR, two-time Olympic champion, world record holder.
Biography
Nina Romashkova was born in the village of Smychka, Sverdlovsk Region (now a district of the city of Nizhny Tagil), where her parents were in exile. Father - Apollon Vasilyevich - painter-artist, later - a participant in the Great Patriotic War. Mother - Anna Fedorovna. In 1936, the family settled in the city of Essentuki, Stavropol Territory.
Nina Romashkova got into sports, becoming the third in the Komsomol cross-country of the Spartakiad of the Industrial Cooperation, the order for participation in which came to the cooperative grocery store in the city of Essentuki, where nineteen-year-old Nina worked. In 1948, Nina entered the Stavropol Pedagogical Institute and began to seriously engage in athletics. Initially, she tried her hand at running disciplines, later she retrained as a discus thrower.
In 1949 she became the bronze medalist of the USSR championship, moved to Moscow. At the USSR championship in 1950 she won a silver medal, in 1951 she won the gold medal of the USSR championship on the third attempt.
In 1952, the athlete went to the debut Olympic Games for the USSR team in Helsinki and excelled with a new Olympic record - 51 m 02 cm. This was the first Olympic gold medal for the USSR. Two more Soviet discus throwers, Nina Dumbadze and Elizaveta Bagryantseva, climbed the pedestal with her. Thus, Nina Romashkova became an Olympic champion in just three years of hard training, for which she received the title of "iron lady" in the foreign press. Romashkova's Olympic gold medal was the first in the history of Soviet sports.
Immediately after the Olympic Games, at competitions in Odessa, the athlete set a world record by sending a disk of 53 meters 61 centimeters. From 1952 to 1956, and then in 1958 and 1959 - the champion of the USSR. At the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, she won a bronze medal: the reason for the uncertain performance was an injury received the day before the final competition. But at the Roman Olympic Games in 1960, Romashkova again celebrated success, becoming the champion with a new Olympic record - 55 meters 10 centimeters. At the 1964 games in Tokyo, Nina Ponomareva was only 11th.
In 1966, the athlete switched to coaching, moved to Kyiv, where she trained young athletes.
Since 1998, Nina Apollonovna Ponomareva has lived in Moscow. in 2013, her bronze bust was unveiled on the Walk of Fame of CSKA, and the CSKA track and field athletics sports school was named after her ..
She passed away on August 18, 2016. She was buried at the Khovansky cemetery in Moscow on August 22, 2016. On September 26, 2016, Ponomareva's ashes were reburied at the memorial cemetery of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in Mytishchi, thus she became the first athlete buried there. The reburial took place on the initiative of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. A bust will be erected at the burial site.
Family
- Was married twice. From her second marriage with doctor Vladimir Garin, she gave birth to a son - Alexander Garin (born 1954), fencer, coach. The granddaughter of Nina Ponomareva is a five-time world champion in fencing, the grandson is a football goalkeeper.
Awards
- Order of the Red Banner of Labor
- Order of the Badge of Honor
I accidentally discovered this interview.
God bless Nina Ponamoreva for a long and happy LIFE!!!
I apologize - the link is not put.
Nina Ponomareva: “Having survived the war, we, hungry and shabby, defended the honor of our country. And they won!
International competitions in athletics between the teams of the USSR and Germany in 1959. Discus throw winner, USSR champion Nina Ponomareva. Photo: Leonid Dorensky, RIA Novosti
Georgy Nastenko
Article
09:00 02 May 2013
Published at 09:00 02 May 2013
A bust of the first Olympic champion in the history of Russian sports, discus thrower, CSKA athlete Nina Apollonovna Ponomareva was unveiled on the Walk of Fame of the Central Army Sports Club. This date, apparently, is dedicated to the 84th anniversary of the great athlete
Nina Apollonovna entered the history of Russian sports by bringing the first gold Olympic medal to Soviet sports in 1952. Before her, only one Russian managed to do this - Nikolai Panin-Kolomenkin back in 1908.
Ponomareva was not satisfied with her resounding success. Four years later, being injured, she managed to take the Olympic bronze. And in 1960 she again became the Olympic champion.
It is pleasant to note that Nina Apollonovna, at her venerable age, remains a lively, energetic person who has retained a wonderful sense of humor and frankness in speeches.
- How did you get into the sport?
“Until 1948, I wasn’t interested in sports at all, and I didn’t have the opportunity to do so,” Nina Ponomareva told Trud. The post-war years were difficult. After graduation, I worked as a sales clerk in a grocery store. I was simply asked to compete in athletics, and cross-country. And off we go. They took me to regional competitions. Then to the edge. And there, an athlete from our team ran a long distance and, before the finish line, he was so exhausted that he could hardly move his legs. Our coach said: "Drag him to the finish line." And in my simplicity, I took it as an order, picked up the guy in my arms, and carried him. He was disqualified "for outside help". I was forced to compete in the pentathlon as punishment. I won. A year later, she took third place at the national championship, but in discus throwing.
How can you explain your rapid progress in results?
“We are the children of the military generation. However, I was the daughter of a repressed person, and therefore, even before the war, my childhood passed in very Spartan, to put it mildly, conditions. And then, when the family returned to Essentuki before the war, in the most difficult years I did not have to get used to either hunger or other difficulties. When the men left to fight, the hardest work fell on the women's shoulders. But our mothers and grandmothers worked in hospitals, and the collective farms were supported by us teenagers. There were no tractors, not even horses - they harnessed themselves when it was necessary to plow. I remember when the cut dried hay had to be thrown with a pitchfork onto the tops of the haystacks, then the navel was ready to untie from the tension, and after working from hunger, the devils danced in the eyes.
- And there was no risk to tear your health?
- Maybe he was. Someone, no doubt, ruined his health overexertion. But, on the other hand, the future champions were getting stronger and were still going through the first stage of selection. It must be admitted that in the post-war years, the passion for sports and physical education in the country was truly massive. We must not forget about the great strength of character of the athletes of the generation that won the international arena even before the 1952 Olympics. Some front-line soldiers, despite the years spent at the front without training, and even having received injuries and contusions, continued to play sports, giving us, the next generation, the best example of fortitude.
- And how did you manage to withstand strong competition and defeat more experienced rivals?
- As far as I know, before the war, even the strongest athletes usually trained three times a week, and throwers generally stopped training in the winter or switched to winter sports where other muscle groups work. My generation was apparently the first to start exercising all year round - daily and even twice a day. Before my eyes, in some gyms, boards were removed from the floor and covered with soil - especially for shot put. And for discus throwing, they began to hang a grid from the ceiling - a catcher.
Nina Ponomareva. Photo: Georgy Nastenko
Inspired to win ... the swagger of a friend in the national team
- You went to the first Olympics for Soviet athletes without being a favorite.
- Not certainly in that way. Yes, in the 1940s, the clear world leader in discus throwing was Nina Dumbadze. Not only a strong athlete, but also a very beautiful and well-educated woman. At first, it was a great happiness for me that she spoke kindly to me. And about how to win against her, I had no thoughts, and even a special desire. But everything changed in one moment.
- And what was the reason?
- Rather, not the reason, but the reason. During my first trip abroad, we were given travel allowances in the currency of the countries where we went. It was a series of competitions in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania. And during the parade in Prague, where I was invited, I accidentally overheard a conversation between our officials about the fact that due to a change in the program of our stay in Czechoslovakia, we may not have time to spend the local currency on weekends. And then I warned Dumbadze about this in the hotel. Moreover, in this case, I cared more not about myself, but about her. Nina, as a multiple winner of international competitions, as a laureate, was paid the maximum, while I, a debutante and a simple student, was paid the minimum. But Nina, instead of thanking me for the warning, at the dinner table sarcastically, in front of the leaders of the delegation, said something like “here, some people worry about their currency.” And it became clear to everyone that it was about me. Out of shame, I was ready to fall through the ground along with the chair.
- And the relationship between you deteriorated?
“They couldn’t have been friendly before. Nina treated me condescendingly, and I treated her with mute adoration. And after that incident in Prague, everything changed. No, the enmity between us did not start. But in the throwing sector, real sports anger woke up in me. And in the next competition, I won it. And from that moment, it seems to me, I have never lost to her again.
Our meat was leaving across the road
- That is, not everything was so cloudless inside our team?
- There were a lot of difficulties then, but in general, our team was very friendly. For a year or two before the Olympic Games, we lived for a long time at training camps. In Podolsk, near Moscow, we were often settled by 15-20 people in one room. In the south, in Leselidze, it was much more comfortable - 4-5 each, but there, absolutely frankly, the cooks fed their numerous families from the kitchen of the sports base.
“Did it really have that magnitude back then?”
- Directly opposite the base in Leselidze lived the cooks and workers of our base. And we saw how our chickens and meat go to the workers of the resort and their guests. And we were fed cutlets of unknown origin, which we called kaklets, from the word "kaka". But these everyday inconveniences did not worsen the relationship between the athletes. There were several reasons why the friendship between me and Nina Dumbadze did not work out. First, we represented different generations. Secondly, Nina grew up in an aristocratic family, where she was served by maids as a child. She was very demanding in terms of everyday life, because she was used to comfort. But in the USSR national team then there were mostly people from working and peasant families, just as simple as me. And now it's probably hard to even imagine how we worried about each of our athletes.
- Do you remember many comrades in the athletics team now?
– Everyone. Not only athletes, but also representatives of other species. I have so many friends left after leaving big-time sports that the representatives of the younger generation were surprised - how, after many years, I remembered everyone by name and last name in group photos. And I still remember well all my fellow athletes, and not only in person, but even their results, moreover, among representatives of various sports. Even now I continue to admire how the athletes of the USSR managed to score the same number of points as the athletes of the USA - 494 each. And they were the clear leaders of world sports for half a century, while we are hungry and skinned by war and post-war famine.
Mutual support added strength to us. And now, as I have seen, many of our champions do not know each other, and sometimes they do not want to know. I say this with regret.
- And yet, going out to compete in Helsinki, did you feel like the main contender for victory?
- I was almost sure that I would beat my two teammates. And the German rival was the current Olympic champion. But in the sector, it was because of her that I got so angry that it gave me extra strength. The three of us were supported by shouts only from our journalists - reporter Kolya Ozerov and a couple of other writers. And for the German woman - a whole sector filled with her fellow countrymen. And not just noisy, but with cries reminiscent of “heil”. It got me, it hit me to the core. And I showed them all "heil"!
- Did your friendship with Ozerov last for a long time?
Yes, he was a bright man. Later I came across various journalists who shamelessly, outrageously misrepresented my words in an interview. But once I promised Kolya that I would not refuse an interview to any of the journalists. And now that Ozerov has left us, I continue to keep my word given to him.
- When did you give it?
- After arriving from Helsinki, Kolya took me to the radio studio. He said: for an hour. There was no live broadcast back then. The recording was going on, but it was a conversation with the fans, many of whom came to the radio studio. And Kolya, a master of his craft, dragged out our conversation for four hours. At first, I spoke very reluctantly: after all, five “servicemen” went to such events for each athlete. In addition, for me - the daughter of convicts - there was a special guard. And after the end of that meeting, Kolya said: “You see with what wet eyes the gray-haired men listened to you, how they worried about you, how they were waiting for your victories.” That's when I promised him never to refuse journalists an interview. And to be more precise - to all the people who want to know - how we, hungry and shabby, defended the honor of our country.
Doping started after I left the sport
- Are you just as zealous for our athletes now?
“I'm more worried about their health than results. I won’t name names… But what has it come to: even among representatives of rhythmic gymnastics, WADA finds illegal drugs!
– When did it start?
– There were several stages, and everything is interconnected. Athletes who joined our teams at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s began to bring in the spirit of commerce, and often it looked primitive and even unpleasant. For example, they took full bags with cans of instant coffee to foreign competitions, and they were warned that a “shmon” would begin in the hotel.
The guys hurriedly poured coffee into the toilet. Toilets and bidets frothed like volcanoes with a mixture of water and coffee. But then these athletes became coaches in the early 1970s, and it was their generation that began to actively introduce dirty commerce, including doping, into our sport. While still athletes!
- When did you start using it?
- In the USSR national team - since 1968. And I am happy that by that time I had already left big sport. And for my generation - not only for myself - I vouch that the records and victories were clean. It is difficult for me now to imagine how I would feel now if I used any drugs. After all, I came to big sport, in fact, being an invalid.
– In what way?
- Even now it is difficult to find a Russian modern stadium, where at least two showers worked normally in the locker room. And in the years of my youth, we could not even dream of such a luxury. Washing after a workout under a tap with cold water, I earned myself a terrible sciatica, from which I then suffered all my sports life. I practically could not train with the onset of dampness and cold weather, that is, from October to February, I usually received more treatment, including in the hospital. And only when I left for Central Asia in early spring, I could somehow breathe in order to work with weights.
– How would you compare the conditions for athletes at the four Olympiads in which you participated as an athlete?
- In Helsinki, the Soviet delegation lived apart from the rest. And they were afraid of us, and our own leadership tried to protect us as much as possible from communication with foreigners. So at the 1952 Olympics, I shared a room with eight roommates. In Australia, we were settled in a separate cottage, like athletes from other countries. But the Melbourne Olympics were intertwined with other events. Firstly, the Soviet consul asked for political asylum in Australia, and this generally had a bad effect on the situation within our team. But here I want to add kind words to the organizers. Indeed, due to financial difficulties, Australia wanted to refuse to host the Olympics, but this outraged ordinary residents of the country. Many have expressed their readiness to refuse moving into new buildings in favor of the athletes. And at the time of the Olympics and a couple of weeks before it, already being the owners of cottages or new apartments, the inhabitants of Melbourne gave up their housing to athletes and coaches. And they themselves only occasionally came to visit us, while not bothering us at all with these visits. Everything changed at the moment when Volodya Kuts accidentally crashed the journalist's car, losing control of the car. From that moment on, the hosts were not even allowed into the Olympic village until the end of the Games. And we lived differently: some of our athletes lived in high-rise apartments, and some in single-story apartments. For example, the five of us occupied a small cottage. For each subsequent Olympics, the IOC greatly increased the requirements for the hosts of the Olympics. Conditions were even more comfortable in Rome than in Melbourne. Everything was well organized in Tokyo, despite the fact that we were settled on the territory of a military barracks.
Golden mat by Nina Ponomareva
- In Tokyo, they expected a fourth Olympic medal from you.
- I started preparing for the 1964 Olympics systematically, I trained normally in Estonia. But there I managed to ride on the lake in a rowboat, and the pain in my lower back worsened. I told the sports authorities that I would be able to get back to normal by Tokyo, but asked me not to touch me before the start of the Olympics, that is, not to load me with competitive loads, test starts. The authorities promised ... but during the acclimatization in Khabarovsk, they arranged these control starts. There I showed a series of quite normal throws. But a week later, in Tokyo, there was absolutely nothing - she could not even come close to her results in Khabarovsk. I was already 35 years old, and older athletes should be treated with care - they themselves can distribute training loads for themselves.
- But, they say, you helped Tamara Press to win the "gold" there.
- Tamara had incredible strength and speed, but she had problems with technique and coordination. And then, because of the great responsibility, she completely went into a stupor. After all, the disk is masculine, and requires gentle, proper handling. The women's disk is too light for her, and in Tamara's sector it fell off her hand. She just didn't make it to the final effort. And as an older teammate, I had to apply the most severe sanctions to her.
- Which?
“She had to be pissed off. Everyone knows: in everyday life you will never hear an indecent word from me. But here I burst out not with three-story, but with five-story curses. Tamara was dumbfounded. I continued to growl: “I will beat you with this disk if you do not obey my commands. I will stand next to the sector in the right place, and until you see me after the turn, do not stop working with your shoulder. And before that, she worked only with her hands. And when I caught her eye on me, I already understood: now the throw will turn out to be very long-range, victorious.
- You performed well in veterans when you were over 70. Why didn’t you go to the 1968 Olympics at the age of 39?
- Together with the Olympic champion of the 68th year, Romanian Manoliu, we competed at four Olympiads. After all, she is ours, Moldovan, - her family moved to Romania when the separation took place. Manoliu has never won against me, nor would she have won in Mexico City. But already after 30 years, I constantly listened to persistent advice to leave the national team. I was forced to leave the rate at the All-Union Sports Committee. And because of Tamara Press, who moved to Moscow, I had to leave for Kyiv.
30 happy years of coaching
- Was it difficult to start coaching?
It was difficult to pay. Having left professional sports at the age of 37, I went to work in a sports boarding school. I brought a work book there, and the previous entry in the sports committee turned out to be without the name of my work specialty and qualifications. So I had to start from scratch - they gave me a salary of 70 rubles. And yet, this work brought me many happy years. Only at the boarding school I trained 12 masters of sports. For my 80th birthday, 46 of my students came, many with their children. I even cried with happiness. All are healthy, beautiful, well-organized in life. Coaches, doctors, journalists and even successful engineers. For an athlete, the coach is often more important than the parents. I had to knock out many apartments. In coaching, I am no less happy than in my own sports victories.
- What are the main difficulties in coaching?
“It was very difficult, but it brought me joy. After all, the coaching profession is not only the pursuit of sports results, but also the education of young people, real help to them so that they find their place in life. Let me tell you a typical episode. A girl Tanya, who came to Kiev from Dzhankoy, trained in my boarding school in Kyiv. I could not get enough of her: she is beautiful, and talented in sports, and hardworking, and a decent person. But in the hostel, an athlete was caught by the hand, who regularly robbed her friends. In her suitcase, they even found the things of her neighbors, which she packed into a parcel and even signed - what she gives to her sister, what - to her brother, what - to her grandmother. The girls hit her once. But there were more than ten robbed, and after such "education" the thief ended up in the hospital with a blue face. Only Tanya was expelled, considering him the instigator. At that time I was away, and dad came for Tanya and was already taking her home. But on the way to the station, they were intercepted by a rowing coach and persuaded to go to train with him. There progress has been quite fast. But soon the head coach, who formed the national team, began to set conditions for Tanya: she would be enrolled in the national team only if she lay in bed with him. From others, he simply demanded money for inclusion in the national team. When I found out about such turns, I agreed at the Kiev army club, and they took Tanya, she successfully played for this club. And then again I had to help her. She studied well. And so, once having passed all the exams ahead of schedule, she left for training camps and competitions, and when she appeared at the institute in the fall, she was already expelled from it, because she did not pass the individual examination sheets on time. Once again I went to the dean's office to intercede for her. And then I found out that the faculty of physical therapy was opened at the Kiev Institute. I persuaded Tanya to switch to him. And now I am doubly happy for her: she is now a well-known specialist in the treatment of injuries. And her daughter, whom she named Nina in my honor, has already graduated from foreign language and works in an international company.
When I finished coaching, I started winning
- And after the end of coaching, you started competing again.
- Not certainly in that way. I worked as a coach until 1996, and already in 1991 I won the World Veterans Championship, and in 1996 I was invited to Australia for the World Veteran Games. True, then I lived in Kyiv and traveled as part of the Ukrainian national team.
For a long time, we, Soviet athletes, did not even suspect that in all civilized countries major competitions were held for athletes over 35 and beyond - by age groups. For the first time, Czech friends in sports told me about this when I took my student to the 1978 European Championship. And Taisiya Chenchik, a former champion in high jump, caught fire with this idea. For many years, she herself traveled to all international tournaments, finding money for participation on her bare enthusiasm and applying for visas, constantly winning world championships among veterans. And in 1991, for the first time, I was invited to the veterans' championship as an honored guest. And already in the course of these competitions, Taya persuaded me to speak in the shot put. It came as a surprise to me, but they found a sports uniform for me, and I took third place. And then she appeared on the disc. There is no technology left. In addition, compared to the years of my performances for discus throwers, the angle of the sector was narrowed, and out of habit, my disc fell into the grid. So I decided to throw from a spot, without rotation, and in the end I won this veteran's championship. And then I won by my age, and even among the younger ones, all the veteran tournaments in which I participated.
- In those dashing 90s in Ukraine, did they find money to send their veterans to Australia?
- Then only councils of sports veterans were created. And the management gathered such a “businesslike” (in a bad sense of the word) that I was simply amazed! And so, together with me, the 1960 Olympic champion in javelin throwing Viktor Tsybulenko and another champion wrestler, they went to Australia as escorts ... 30 (!) people. And I just did not know where to go from shame.
Champions are homeless, and executives pay $300 extra for luggage
- Why?
- We, three athletes, were settled in some roadside hotel. And the Slavic diaspora of Australia, mostly poor people, chipped in money to somehow support us there. They organized holidays for us, meetings with compatriots. In a welcoming speech, the list of guests was announced. First, three veteran champions were named. And then they began to list: the director of a shoe factory, the director of a jewelry factory, the chairman of the district committee and his deputy, and the like. It is clear that they did not live near us, but somewhere in luxurious apartments. And when they went back, they handed over so many suitcases as luggage that everyone at the airport paid $ 300 or more for excess luggage. And these "poor veterans" were financially supported by elderly Australians!
- If there hadn't been a broken leg, I would still win in the 80 plus age group. I went to my last tournament, the Veteran Games, while still living in Kyiv and still being a citizen of Ukraine. The Russians paid for my trip to these Games, and the Ukrainian officials could not even give me a T-shirt with Ukrainian symbols, arguing that these T-shirts are very expensive - with hand embroidery. As a result, I performed in a T-shirt with the Moscow emblem.
- In the future, and this circumstance became the reason for returning to Moscow?
– And this too. In addition, in Kyiv, one might say, I was homeless at times. The pension was meager. And in order to earn a living, on weekends I rented out my housing to firms who came to Kyiv, and I myself spent the night where I could. She filed a petition with the Russian representation and then nine months, as if in a demolition, she waited for the result. When they gave the go-ahead, I sold the apartment, and in Moscow Luzhkov helped with the purchase of housing. And then, back in Moscow, she performed for veterans for several years. And then it was unpleasant for me: when in 2002 the Finns held an anniversary veteran tournament in honor of the 50th anniversary of their Olympics, they sent invitations to many participants. And only our Russians, for some reason, were not informed of this information.
How are you keeping fit now?
- Working in the garden. I cultivate 6 acres of land. I have five trees, currant bushes. There is a greenhouse in which I grow cucumbers, strawberries and wild strawberries. I dig everything myself. Last year there was a large harvest of plums - I called all my relatives and friends to come and pick them up.
And some former sports friends come to my country house, just to live and take a break from city life.
I have always been a strong girl. Mom said: "If Ninka was a guy, I would not know grief." Here is a quiet brother. It happened, and I beat him, and on the street all the boys. »Nina Ponomareva-Romashkova
In the 20th century, there was a great army of Soviet athletes who raised the prestige of a large country. They did not receive millions, but fought courageously for every victory, were the idols of millions. They were equaled, imitated - they glorified Soviet sport, and it was their fame and achievements that promoted sport to the masses.
The main achievements of the athletes were, of course, the Olympic Games. The Soviet Union actively joined the sports movement only after the Second World War, and for the first time took part in the Olympic Games during the life of Joseph Stalin - in 1952, at the Olympics in Helsinki. In those games, the country of the Soviets won 22 gold medals, 30 silver and 19 bronze. The achievements of Soviet athletes in this and subsequent other international competitions turned a huge country into a great sports power.
By the way, in total, Soviet athletes took part from 1952 to 1988 in 18 Winter and Summer Olympic Games and in all competitions the USSR played a leading role in the overall standings, never falling below second place.
Only once, in 1980, did we host the 22nd Olympic Games in our home country. Famous. However, we have already written about little-known facts and secrets of these games earlier.
So who are they, the greatest athletes of the USSR, those who terrified their rivals?
So, a series of articles about the greatest and titled athletes of the USSR opens with the First Olympic Champion of the USSR:
Nina Apollonovna Ponomareva-Romashkova
Soviet athlete, discus thrower, eight-time champion of the USSR, two-time Olympic champion, world record holder.
The foreign press called the Soviet athlete - "The Iron Lady". And this is not surprising, the first Olympic Games of the USSR after the war and the first medal for a woman, and even what. The fact is that Nina Apollonovna was born in the barracks of the Gulag camp.
“Then I thought that everyone lived like this - a barrack for a hundred people, there were no partitions, families were separated from each other by curtains. So my childhood was spent in a colony for political prisoners of the Gulag.
In the passport in the column "place of birth" the city of Sverdlovsk is indicated, which is in the Urals. In my memory, memories of the hard hard labor of prisoners are forever preserved.
After the Gulag, there was very little peaceful life. The family moved to a Cossack village near Essentuki in 1936. The little girl and her brother had just begun a normal childhood, until the war broke out.
“- In the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody and Essentuki, in particular, there are many sanatoriums and rest houses. In the first years of the war, all of them were converted into hospitals, where fighters from all fronts were taken. The inhabitants of our village helped them as best they could: who would bring food, who would come to court. My class was attached to a certain sanatorium, where we cleaned the wards, well, looked after the wounded, helping the nurses and nurses. And then the Germans came...
It so happened that my mother, who then worked in one of the sanatoriums, was assigned to accompany one of the patients, who was discharged and sent home, somewhere in the Far East. He was almost blind. Well, my mother left even before the arrival of the Germans. And my father went to the front. My brother and I stayed under the care of my grandmother.
Our school was turned into a barracks. The products were gone. They ate what they could. At first, stocks of potatoes from his garden, then she was gone. There were no men left in the village. I had to do everything - put hay in stacks, plow on cows, thresh bread with flails, and then twist stones to grind flour, brew it and feed the younger ones first of all. Even now my voice begins to tremble when I remember that bitter time ... But nothing, we survived!
For the first time, the future champion got into sports 3 years before the Olympics, and quite by accident.
«- I got into the sport by accident. The disc from the first time repulsed the desire to deal with it. I almost killed the referee, he was saved by the fact that he himself was an athlete and managed to jump onto the referee's table in time, and dodged it. At that time I worked as a saleswoman in a grocery store. I was asked to run a city cross, so what should I do? - I'll run if I need to. Got into the responsibility.
I went out to that cross, in Essentukov Park, my rivals almost fell out of laughter - my uniform was of the pre-war model, and then the fashion had already stepped far ahead and I was an aunt whom God did not offend with her height. Our coach told me: “keep behind Masha”, but as soon as we started, I lost sight of this Masha, I ran - the distance was 500 meters - the finish line was already close, but I didn’t even know about it, so I managed to finish third. Didn't even get to show up.
PHOTO BY ANATOLY BOCHININ. ... After that, I was invited to the regional competitions in Stavropol. At first I refused, I did not like this business with the kernel and the disk. Our Komsomol leader came and persuaded us.
Yes, and my mother pounced, they say, “I forgot what attitude towards us, the dispossessed kulaks, there is nothing to be fooled.” Well, I agreed.
But, by the way, I received the first sports fee, oddly enough, not for success in discus throwing, but for the all-Union record in the relay race. Spent all the money on a coat and shoes. This was followed by regional competitions in Stavropol, then they began to invite me to larger competitions and, as a result, I ended up at the debut Olympic Games in Helsinki in the history of the USSR national team.
About my impressions
- It was something amazing - a crowded stadium with a hundred thousand people, the attention of the press. Everything was a curiosity. I then rode the third number in the team, but I was able to bypass not only my compatriots, but also the leading athletes of the world of that time.
The stadium in Helsinki just exploded when I threw the discus. He flew more than 50 m (51.02), then this result was outrageous. It's no joke, the record that has been held since 1936 has been broken.
Anatoly Garanin: Absolute Olympic champion, Soviet gymnast Maria Gorokhovskaya (left) and Nina Ponomareva-Romashkova. XV Summer Olympic Games. Helsinki, 1952 RIA Novosti archive It was a victory. But the realization that I had won came only when I was clutching a heavy golden circle in my hand. Tears of happiness rolled down from the eyes.
By the way, two more Soviet discus throwers, Nina Dumbadze and Elizaveta Bagryantseva, climbed the pedestal along with Nina Apollonovna. Thus, the first Olympic Games were an absolute triumph for the Soviet women's team in this discipline.
There is a lot of symbolism in this victory. The first Olympics and the first medal went to a girl with a patronymic Apollonovna. Nina Appolonovna became the best on the planet in the ancient form, which was part of the program of the ancient Olympic Games. Back in the 5th century BC. e. sculptor Myron created the now world-famous sculpture of a discus ball ("Diskobolos"). Why, even the ancient Greek gods "dabbled" with the disk. According to one of the myths, Apollo himself competed in the discus throw.
The glorious history of our Olympic victories and the birth of a sports superpower, the USSR, began with the gold of Romashkova-Ponomareva.
Immediately after the Olympic Games, at competitions in Odessa, the athlete set a world record by sending a disk of 53 meters 61 centimeters. From 1952 to 1956, and then in 1958 and 1959, Nina Romashkova was the champion of the USSR. At the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, she won a bronze medal: the reason for the uncertain performance was an injury received the day before the final competition. But at the Roman Olympic Games in 1960, Romashkova again celebrated success, becoming a champion with a new Olympic record - 55 meters 10 centimeters.
By the way, with such a result, Nina Appolonovna would have risen to the third step of the podium at the Russian Athletics Championship in our time ...
In 1966, the athlete switched to coaching, moved to Kyiv, where she trained young athletes.
Since 1998, Nina Apollonovna Ponomaryova lived in Russia. And in 2013, the CSKA Walk of Fame in Moscow was decorated with a bronze bust of Nina Ponomareva.
“I was stunned when I first saw him. Not everyone sees his lifetime statue. In general, I should note that as an athlete I took place precisely in the Red Army club, where Vasily Iosifovich Stalin invited me. Here they created ideal conditions for us - training, playgrounds, then CSKA gathered the entire sports elite of the country under its banner. And we proudly represented the Soviet Union in international competitions. When the kids ask why the medal is not gold, I answer, it remained on your fingers.