In the mid-70s, this girl with pigtails, living in a small Belarusian ...
Her smile and braids conquered the whole world. When the “Soviet sparrow” jumped on the uneven bars, overcoming the earth's gravity, the hearts of the audience sank ... But it so happened that Olga Korbut was more appreciated abroad - after perestroika, the champion in artistic gymnastics emigrated to America. And now he lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
On the eve of her 55th birthday, Olga Korbut confessed to MK that she was ready for a new loop of fate. She really wants to jump over the ocean and return to Russia.
But I'm not sure if I can land on my feet here.
Olympics in Munich, 72nd year ... Olga Korbut, flashing her famous smile, was preparing to make her signature number - jump on the upper bars, in a matter of seconds make a loop back in the air and land back on the upper bars. She still does not remember what she was wrong about when she fell on the mats ... The stands were quiet, the girl was crying, hiding her face in her palms, her little braids trembled ... Viewers on TV screens around the world were crying with the athlete.
- For that failure, the audience was imbued with sincere sympathy for you ... Do you think that you lost or won something more than a gold medal?
“I didn't lose even then, although I was very offended,” Olga Korbut answers the phone with a slight “transatlantic” accent. - Since I fought not for medals, but for the result. And although journalists always remember my first failure, I believe that they loved and recognized me all over the world for my cheerful smile.
- When you arrived in America, you were met by Nixon himself ...
- Personally, I was given a car right to the plane's ladder, and when Nixon approached me at the conference, I did not recognize him: “You are so little!” - with a smile he looked down at me. "You're not a big boy either!" - I didn’t crawl into my pocket for a word. And then it turned out that in front of me was the President of the United States.
- You already knew English well then?
- I realized that I needed the language after I came to the demonstration performances in Japan, and in the evening I went out for a walk and lost my way to my hotel. Passers-by did not understand me. Then I found my room key and showed the name of the hotel to the policeman who accompanied me - it turned out that it was only two blocks away, but I remembered the lesson for a long time.
- Probably, it was not easy for you to leave the big sport shortly after the 1976 Olympics - then you had to remove your famous "loop" from the program ...
- In big sports, I suffered 23 fractures and 4 concussions, and it was during the Olympics in Montreal that old wounds made themselves felt - after the first competition I started to limp openly. And I realized that it was time to tie ... I was offered to be the coach of the Soviet national artistic gymnastics team, for this I had to be in a party, and I lost my membership card. For this there was a “punishment” in the Union - they were expelled for a year, and I could not stand idle so much. And from Atlanta I received an offer to sign a coaching contract. And I accepted it.
- How many years did you do the loop after that?
- The first time I made a loop by accident and have been perfecting this number for 20 years. Even after moving to America in 1988, she honed her skills at demonstration performances. Now, of course, I don’t do the “loop” anymore - for this you have to constantly train. Although I am in good shape, I have developed and teach a special shaping program that is suitable for any age - from 5 to 90, you can eat anything with it and look great.
- What, do you eat hamburgers?
- I still promote healthy eating, and fast food is a trash heap! I adhere to a vegetable, fruit diet myself ... Although I love pizza, I don't order it in restaurants - I always cook it myself.
Ups and downs
Today Olga Korbut is not married. After 22 years of marriage, in 2000 she divorced her husband, the lead singer of Pesnyars, Leonid Bortkevich. He did not take root in America and returned to Belarus, and although the ocean separates him with his ex-wife, they still consider each other close people ...
“We call each other almost every day,” says Leonid Bortkevich. - Olga has a very difficult time there.
- It is symbolic that you met on an airplane that flew to the USA ...
- This is fate ... In 73, we flew to America with “Pesnyars” for the first time. And they got on the same plane with the gymnasts. Began to get acquainted. I was not in the mood for a noisy company, and Olga also huddled in a secluded corner of the salon - they began to get bored together. And they chatted with her for seven hours in a row. “I will never marry an artist or an athlete,” she confessed to me with a laugh. Then we parted ways, and a year later Olga called me exactly a few days after my first wife cheated on me. She herself was also supposed to get married, but had a falling out with her fiancé-athlete and literally ran away from under the aisle. When she appeared on my doorstep, I was stunned by her beauty. "May I come in?" - defused the situation my future wife. And she entered my life for 22 years.
- Did you immediately decide to get married?
- We immediately began to live together. And the Central Committee married us, they called us from the party and arranged a surprise: "Tomorrow you have a wedding, a banquet is ordered!" I had to invite friends at great speed. About five hundred people gathered, even Kobzon was invited ...
- Did you also provide the bride with a dress?
- Did Olga still have a psychological trauma from the fact that coach Knysh was trying too hard to get her?
- Yes, we had to overcome this problem together. Although she spoke of him with great respect. And when Knysh's addictions to youngsters floated out, we went together to the prosecutor and begged to close the criminal case. Still, she loved him on some level.
- Was your son Richard welcome?
- Olga just left the sport, in the Union she was assigned a lifelong allowance of 300 rubles, and for three years she traveled with “Pesnyars” throughout the Union, it was the happiest time in my life. And my wife was spoiled by foreign trips, but she did not know her homeland at all. We were afraid that after so many injuries she would not be able to give birth, we did not succeed for a long time ... We named Richard in honor of my grandfather, a Polish prince.
- You also had to go through a difficult time: the second child was born dead, and then Olga herself almost died due to an accident ... How did you cope with this?
- Misfortune really followed us at one time. It was especially difficult for Olga. They had already invented a name for the second child, they wanted to call him Vanechka. But the day before the birth, the Belarusian doctor examined Olga unsuccessfully ... We never found out what really happened. We all called with congratulations the next day, and we cried into the phone, reporting the grief. Olga was in a terrible depression, she tried to forget herself in new achievements - she took up sports dressage of horses, but before one meeting with journalists in the stable, the horse threw off the saddle and pierced the chest with a hoof. Olga had three internal bleeding, before my eyes in the hospital she almost died - she had already started to turn blue when she received a blood transfusion ...
Arizona dream
“We decided to leave for America not only for career reasons, but also after the Chernobyl disaster, which hit Minsk hard,” says Olga Korbut. - We were worried about the health of our son.
But Leonid Bortkevich had to leave his favorite business for this ...
“I transferred my responsibilities to the rest of the group for a month,” he says. - In Atlanta, we were given a house, Olga was surrounded by fans, she trained gymnasts and went with demonstration performances, and for two years I was generally idle, studying with Richard, whom we arranged for a local school. Then I sent out my resume, and one company invited me to sell photographic equipment, which I did for five years.
- What made you return to Belarus?
- We had a good relationship with Olga, but I really missed my homeland and what I loved. And I realized that my profession is the meaning of life when I was invited to a festival in Belarus. I went out into the hay again, sang "Birch sap", the audience got up ... And I went backstage and began to cry. When I returned to America, I told Olga that I couldn't live like this anymore. To be honest, there was also a woman in Belarus, Svetlana, with whom I fell in love for a long time, but Olga did not cheat ... She waited for me ten years later.
- Olga calmly let you go?
- She understood everything, we are close people ... So that she would not be left alone, I myself even sent her a groom from Belarus. Our mutual friend Alex has long been in love with her, we went with him to the consul, honestly told why we wanted to send Alex to America. He understood everything. And for a while Olga lived with him, but then they fled - they did not agree in character.
- Why did your son Richard also return to Belarus?
- He studied in America to be a programmer and showed such talent in this business that the American special services caught him hacking. They offered either cooperation with them or deportation. And Richard chose the latter - now he has his own company in Belarus. And Olga was left in America all alone.
- And what a dark story, when in 2002 Olga was detained for theft in a supermarket?
- She just forgot her wallet in the car, there were only 19 dollars worth of food. Olga was arrested because Russians often steal from shops. And during a search in her house, they found counterfeit bills - Richard printed them out of self-indulgence. I had to pay a deposit for Olga - $ 600.
Korbut confessed to a reporter for “MK” that American men have always been interested in her and that she recently preferred one of them.
- But no details, so as not to jinx it.
- Olga, in 2008, for the first time in 20 years, you came to Moscow. Could you live in the capital of Russia?
- During that visit, I told Vitaly Mutko that I would like to share my experience with Russian gymnasts, I have something to teach them, I have tremendous experience. And I would leave my profitable activity in America for this. He promised to think about the proposal, but so far it hung in the air. Strange, but I travel a lot around the world, all countries invited me to the Olympics. But whether they will be invited to Sochi, I'm not sure ...
In the mid-70s, this girl with pigtails, who lives in a small Belarusian Grodno, broke all popularity records. And extravagance too.
Not like everyone else
We met in November 75th. A brilliant little gymnast and an aspiring reporter from a large youth newspaper, supposedly intended for people like her. We went into her apartment, filled with cups and other attributes of universal glory. There was a long list of questions prepared, and an editorial camera, which Olya immediately demanded to remove. Yes, and I, in principle, could get out of a non-provincial luxurious dwelling in ten minutes.
Although, like everyone who loves sports, I idolized this girl who made the Great Korbutov revolution in gymnastics. She won three gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics. "Somersault Korbut", "Loop Korbut" and other devil-those that, invented by her with the coach Renald Knysh, was then banned due to the excessive complexity and risk to the life of the only performer, it was praised as unsurpassed innovation.
She was not like everyone else, and was ahead of gymnastics by years, if not a decade. Let her invariably lose in the individual championship to an excellent pupil, a real leader and a Komsomol organizer of the national team, to the boredom of the neat and correct delegate of the Komsomol congresses Lyudmila Turishcheva. Even if she sometimes fell off her favorite beams and logs. In this confrontation between the two schools - the Soviet gymnastics school and her purely Korbutov school, my sympathies were on the side of the girl with pigtails.
I'm afraid it was not the diplomats Gromyko and Dobrynin, namely Olga Valentinovna Korbut, 18 years old, who pushed the window into the States that hated us at that time. Where her tiny, crooked-muscular leg set foot during her first gymnastic tour in the United States, dozens of clubs have sprung up, which were given the blessed name for America. It opened doors for the USSR to foreign countries. And many in the West looked at the Soviet Union in a different way: if such a genius baby was brought up there, then maybe this country can be dealt with? She amazed with her openness, thirst for communication, the ability to establish contact with any stranger on the platform - the spectator.
But not with me.
Could be a bitch
Rudeness from her and perlo. Yes and no, mocking answers to questions. At first I was puffed up, trying to remind about the greatness of the big Komsomol newspaper. Yes, this girl, who saw everything and everyone, did not care about millions of copies, and about prestige. It was enough for her throat, satiated with fame and attention. Never before, nor in the next 33 years, I was not received like this in a boorish way.
I was already collecting money. I had already listened to the reproaches of her rather sweet, very simple mother: "A man came to you from Moscow, on the train, sideways, shaking ..." She, with unbraided pigtails, seemed to me now an awkwardly absurd arrogant freak, with whom there is nothing to talk about ... The route apartment - hotel - station was quite logical. But it was not possible to change the ticket. I was locked in Grodno, which had become disgusting, with its almost only hotel.
You can't just leave us. And I will not help.
And don't, - I snapped.
Get down, this is Olga, - well, yes, otherwise I did not guess. “I'm downstairs at the hotel.
And we went for a walk in sunny Grodno. November, but her luxurious fox coat is a dude! - slightly dragged along the Grodno pavement. And how pleasant it was for Olga to be recognized at every step, requests for an autograph, the attention of passers-by - for the first and last time they saw.
The world is small. For some reason, the dancer Makhmud Esambaev, who was thundering at that time, suddenly met. He was at our house, at my father's, but did not recognize me, and did not pay attention at all. Already not at all young, he bowed in his usual hat in three deaths, kissed Olya's hand, invited him to today's concert, held out two tickets as if prepared in advance.
Let's go to? - she asked when the People's Artist of the USSR disappeared just as suddenly, bowing theatrically.
No - I was still pouting. And she, having crumpled up the tickets, threw them right on the pavement. She was a decisive girl.
And then, by God, I don’t know why, a wide river of revelation poured down. Did you want to speak out? Have a new interlocutor? Hardly for a newspaper. She told me everything. Or almost everything. How I lay three times in the hospital with a concussion and how it was forbidden to write about it. How tired of the coach Renald Ivanovich with instructions and something else there and his partner assigned to her, Olga. She talked about the eternal fear that does not leave when she goes to the platform. For us, the spectators, her flights are a circus, a performance, for her - a game, if not with death, then with risk. Sometimes the performance ends sadly. And now I have been in the hospital for more than a month. The coach visited, but for what? Looked when you can start again?
And she was tired of everything to hell, even to something that couldn't be written about. She is already 20, and each element is given more and more difficult. And fear suffocates. And competitors too. Well, how do people who evaluate gymnastics do not understand that the future is for her, for Korbut, and not for those who come out, "waved his arms and legs" and took the medal? And not a word about the anthem, about the honor to defend the Motherland and the like, in those days, well, simply obligatory, as in the days of tsarism "Our Father".
And I don't need medals and titles.
What do you need?
Need love, not medals
The love of the audience. When I just warm up, I can already feel them. If you manage to establish contact with them - success is assured, - suddenly it is completely incomprehensible: - I would like to enter the Moscow Art Theater School. Or to the Shchukin school. No, better at the Moscow Art Theater.
But why at the Moscow Art Theater?
And in a girlish way, purely provincial naive, although he bowed down, kissing a weary gymnastic palm, People's Artist Esambaev:
And there the actors are more impressive.
In the morning Knysh and his assistant Alekseeva came to the hotel. Renald Ivanovich complained to me about Olga, about unwillingness to train, to defend the honor of the Soviet country with dignity. On the violations of the regime occurring in the pupil. What I myself was a sin last night, I could see.
In short, everything or almost everything was soon published in the Komsomol newspaper. In the harsh and sleeping Brezhnevism, this sounded a strange, unusual revelation for the Land of Soviets. It's okay that the fraternal youth publications of the socialist countries, friendly to us, have diligently reprinted all these unexpected confessions. The International Herald Tribune, the only American newspaper known in the USSR, quoted the harshest and most memorable quotations, accurately reproducing the nuances of a complex translation.
It should have been, a scandal was already slowly flaring up. In the Central Committee - MK believed: they have distorted and perverted the words of the Soviet gymnast. But for some reason everything went out. Olga there, in Grodno, confirmed that everything was so, she said. The editorial office in the fashion of the time was overwhelmed with letters, everyone wanted to help poor Olya, they asked for an address and telephone number ...
And I met Olga in July 1976 at the Montreal Olympics. Although Oli was no longer there. And there was a trained tin soldier, the Romanian Nadia Comaneci, ahead of our Nelly Kim, and the same staunch Luda Turishcheva. Although Korbut won as part of the team, she lost even on a balance beam to the Romanian, taking second place. She was unrecognizable. What a girl with pigtails. An adult and tired woman struggled with a new generation of gymnasts who had just been born and full of strength. Yes, gymnastics Korbut won. But even more complicated, risky, cruel.
It is no coincidence that at these Beijing Games, the hosts suspected that they were releasing absolutely girls on the platform. Women's gymnastics at that time ended with Korbut's career. Trying to repeat something from Korbutov's Elena Mukhina received a serious injury, and only the arrival of Svetlana Khorkina, no less brilliant and obstinate than Korbut, for a couple of Olympics brightened up the faded picture.
It was a pity to look at the gymnasts in Beijing, especially ours. And the Chinese women are very scary. Poor seven-graders ...
Where is Olga Korbut now?
She married the songwriter Bortkevich, gave birth to his son, named Richard in the Korbutov style, lives in the USA. In the little-known state of Arizona, in his own school, or in the gym, he trains unknown American women.
She divorced after two decades of marriage with Bortkevich, who returned to Pesnyary. Often gets into stupid scandals. Either they will be accused of non-payment of 19 dollars in a supermarket, or they will find some counterfeit money in the apartment of Olga's close relative. Silly accusations are not confirmed. She remained herself - risky, self-confident, pretty in her 50s and only gained a kilo in weight.
Now there is talk about her returning home. The house is the same - Belarus, only the country and life are completely different. What can they offer her at home? As I read in Belarusian newspapers, the total salary with all the markups is 150 dollars. I am afraid that after almost two decades in the United States, none of "our Americans" will last for it, let alone Korbut. And with whom to return? A coach? What? I'm not sure, but I think the paths are completely cut off here. Coach Knysh is also sarcastic.
But there are people to whom everything can and should be forgiven. Although, why forgive Ole Korbut? It is not necessary to forgive, but to thank for the perfect for our gymnastics. A girl with pigtails, an amazing gymnast, and a diplomat in the old days. Her big gymnastic life ended at the age of 21. Then a different existence began. And it is wonderful that all this continues without deviating from what was intended.
Many are interested in how to become a strong, successful person, to reach heights in life. The study of biographies of outstanding people helps in this. Who are they, how did they achieve success and fame? Maybe they are arranged differently or do they have different living conditions compared to ordinary people? Let's see if this is so, using the example of the biography of Olga Korbut - an artistic gymnast, an object of admiration and admiration of people from many countries of the world. They called her “Russian prima”, “Russian chicken”, “miniature beauty”.
Olga's family and home
Olga Korbut's story is reminiscent of the tale of Cinderella. She was born in the Belarusian city of Grodno on May 16, 1955. The girl did not have rich and famous parents. On the contrary, she grew up in the most ordinary family: dad was an engineer, and mom was a cook. Living conditions were more than modest - the family huddled in a room with no amenities of 20 m 2. But, in addition to Olya, three more girls grew up in the family. Six people in one room!
The beginning of the sports path
Olya studied in elementary school with excellent marks. In the second grade, she was admitted to the school gymnastics section. There was no money for equipment, and my mother sewed gym shoes from a terry towel, and a swimsuit from a long T-shirt. Later, at the age of ten, Olya moved to a sports school to coach Renald Knysh. At first, he did not believe in a girl who, in his opinion, was too well-fed. But another coach, Knysh's student, Elena Volchetskaya, an Olympic champion, saw something in Olya, and she was given a chance. Gradually, Renald Knysh appreciated the young gymnast. Among the many girls, he was looking for the most capable one, of which it would be possible to nurture the future champion. The coach was able to see the huge potential in the small and nondescript Korbut.
In general, Olya and Renald Knysh constituted a harmonious tandem: he is striving for novelty, for taking risks, stubborn, uncompromising, she is also stubborn, talented, flexible, very efficient, strong in body and spirit, willing to perform, to amaze the audience. Just made for gymnastics! Later, in an interview, Olga Korbut will say that all the most important things in her life - both good and not so - are connected with gymnastics.
The difficult character of the future champion
The girl was very emotional and spontaneous. Gymnast Olga Korbut spoke about the complexity of her character in an interview, calling her character intolerable. She could not cope with herself: either she wanted to do an exercise that the coach did not allow her to perform, then, on the contrary, she flatly refused to demonstrate any trifling element proposed by Ren (as Korbut called him). Here the strength of her sporting character was also visible.
Olga Korbut's sports biography has excellent achievements. The athlete, together with the coach, developed her new, unusual, risky gymnastics. For the first time, Olga loudly declared herself, having performed a somersault on a balance beam at a youth competition at the age of 14.
For several years he and Renald Knysh had been persistently preparing this sensational element, but with varying success. Skeptics did not believe that the girl would be able to achieve stability in the performance of somersaults, and that she could be released with this to international competitions. But they miscalculated: Olya exhausted herself with repetitions of a unique element, and everything began to work out.
Korbut's first important victory
The first significant sports victory was won by a gymnast at the USSR Championship in 1970. Olga received a gold medal for the vault. As a result, the girl became a member of the USSR national team.
Success at the Munich Olympics
The first Olympiad of Olga Korbut was approaching - in 1972 in the German city of Munich. The girl was 17 years old, the gymnast was in excellent physical shape. Together with a coach, they prepared a peculiar program full of novelties and risky elements. The hour of Olga Korbut's world triumph was approaching.
Miniature (height - 152 cm), with perky tails tied with bright ribbons, flexible and plastic, with surprisingly clean and smooth lines, creating something stunning on gymnastic apparatus, Olya made a splash. And the "dead loop" Korbut especially struck the world. Until now, no one has done such a risky element in women's artistic gymnastics. The girl stood on the top pole of the uneven bars and jumped back somersault, grabbed the top bar and then continued her beautiful combination at a fast pace. She moved so easily and smoothly, as if the force of gravity did not act on her.
The tribunes were jubilant. Olga landed precisely and firmly, triumphantly straightened up and lit up with a happy smile. In general, her smile is also a kind of visiting card: wide, sincere, joyful, captivating.
Olya Korbut performed magnificently both on the balance beam and in floor exercises, having received gold for them. The new composition for freestyle "Kalinka", specially staged for the Olympics, demonstrated in all its brilliance the girl's magnificent acrobatics and her artistry.
But on the uneven bars, she still lost to the German gymnast Karin Yants and became the second. In the team competition Olga received a gold medal, in total - three golds and one silver! An inspiring result for the Olympics debutante.
The story of Olga Korbut's "loop"
The athlete demonstrated this very risky unique element for the first time in 1969 at the USSR Championship.
How did the phenomenal "loop" Korbut appear, which later blew up the Olympic stands? Renald Knysh said that once in training Olya just dabbled on the uneven bars and suddenly did something out of the ordinary. The coach immediately felt the unusualness of the performed and tried to reproduce the performed element in his memory. This is how the legendary “dead loop” of Olga Korbut was born, which took years to polish.
In an interview, the gymnast said that she was always afraid to nausea of \u200b\u200bthis element and before going to the uneven bars she overcame a great desire to escape from the competition to the whistle and hooting of angry fans. But, of course, she walked and performed her composition. Not once during the execution of the "loop", she did not break, was not injured.
The paradox is that the gymnast has not won a single gold medal in exercises on the uneven bars for the entire time of her performances at international competitions. All the first places for this shell usually went to German athletes, and Ole was given the highest awards for exercises on a balance beam and free. It's a shame, strange, but true.
Subsequently, Elena Mukhina repeated the "loop", improving it (adding a screw). But one day Mukhina did not calculate something and during training, while repeating an insidious element, she fell from the bars, received a spinal fracture and lay paralyzed for 25 years. After this tragic incident, it was forbidden to make a "loop". Now, according to the rules of artistic gymnastics, athletes cannot stand on the top rail of this apparatus.
Stream of worldwide fame
After the Olympics in Munich, fame literally fell on young Olga. Fans from different countries adored her, and as soon as she came to a store abroad, she was immediately given goods for free. She bought a wig and dark glasses, but this did not help her disguise at all - they still recognized, approached, and took autographs.
Soviet sportswomen went to different countries with demonstration performances, and people went to look first of all at the "Russian sparrow". In the USA, 200 gyms were named in honor of Olga Korbut and a boom in artistic gymnastics began.
Korbut's meeting with the President of the United States
Olga met with US President Richard Nixon. Subsequently, Russian diplomats admitted to her that she had done in Soviet-American politics what they had not been able to accomplish in 5 years. Olga talked to Nixon quite naturally.
Nixon said to Olga: "What a little girl", to which she, not recognizing him, answered tall Nixon in not very good English: "You are a big boy." The laughter among those around did not stop for several minutes. Then the team was invited to dinner. Warmth blew in relations between the countries. It was after Olga's visit to America and her meeting with President Nixon that he flew to the USSR in 1974 during the Cold War.
Change of coach
Soon the athlete broke up with her coach Renald Knysh and began to study with Olga Alekseeva. These were completely different mentors in character. Alekseeva is calmer, more benevolent, she managed to become Olga's older friend, but this did not prevent her from being a demanding and strict teacher.
World Championship in Varna
At the 1974 World Championships in Varna, Bulgaria, Olga felt herself in the best athletic form during her entire sports life. During the competition, the gymnast earned two gold (in team competitions and for vault) and four silver awards (all-around, parallel bars, beam, freestyle). In the all-around, gold was won by Lyudmila Turishcheva, a constant rival of Korbut, and Olga felt the injustice of what was happening, because she showed excellent, pure, innovative gymnastics, was in excellent shape.
And the audience was violently indignant when they saw the assessment of little Korbut. But sport is sport, what can you do.
Victories in the USSR and the Montreal Olympics
And then in the biography of Olga Korbut, a victory in the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR and the title of the absolute champion of the USSR in 1975. 1976 - Olympic Games in Montreal, Canada. There Olga Valentinovna Korbut won a gold medal as part of the team and received a silver medal for performing on a balance beam. Such a seemingly not very victorious performance was due to an aggravated long-standing ankle injury, and in order not to leave the competition at all, Olga and her coach had to simplify their program as much as possible, remove from it the most spectacular and dangerous elements that were in abundance.
Retirement from sports
At the age of 23, in 1978, Olga Valentinovna Korbut decided to leave the big sport, and her ceremonial seeing-off took place at international competitions in Moscow. After that, there were demonstration performances of Russian gymnasts in Tehran, where Korbut finally once again delighted the fans with her skill. The audience begged: "Don't go, Olga!" But a new stage had already begun in life.
Personal life of Olga Korbut
In the biography of Olga Korbut, there is a place not only for sports achievements, but also for beautiful love. Once on the plane, she met the soloist of the famous VIA "Pesnyary" Leonid Bortkevich. Olya flew with the athletes, and Leonid flew with the musicians. Both sat apart from their teams, and Olga invited the young man to be bored together. As a result, they talked for 6 hours. Finally, Bortkevich wrote to Olga his phone number. And she called back ... a year later, when she was lonely and she accidentally saw Leonid's number. They met, looked at each other for a long time, and the girl realized that love had come. Apparently Leonidas felt the same way, as a result of which they got married and lived for 22 years. Olga gave birth to Leonid's son Richard, contrary to the forecasts of doctors (they believed that she would not be able to give birth).
Olga Korbut could have two children, because they were waiting with Bortkevich and their second son, whom it had already been decided to name Vanya. But the child was born dead.
Everything in the family was fine, but Korbut began to fly to America often for charity work, eventually moving there permanently. She was still loved in the United States and received many offers of cooperation in the sports field. Leonid, however, could not find a place for himself in America and returned to Russia to pursue his musical career. The family broke up.
Olga later married journalist Alexei Voynich, but the marriage was very short.
Now everything is fine in Olga Korbut's personal life. She is going to marry American Jay Schoenfilt, a marketing specialist. Their relationship has been going on for 10 years. The chosen one is 17 years younger than the athlete, but the age difference does not bother them. And Korbut also became a grandmother in 2013: Richard had a son, Valentin.
Merit in gymnastics
Olga Korbut left a significant mark in artistic gymnastics. Her achievements are innovative somersaults on a balance beam, the legendary “dead loop” Korbut, a flick-flak jump (backwards with two feet), medals of the highest dignity at two Olympiads, several world and all-Union championships, the introduction of novelty and complexity into many existing elements, risky , a daring, sometimes accelerated manner of performing elements, creating your own unique style.
How Olga Korbut lives now
Olga Valentinovna lives in the small American town of Scottsdale, in the state of Arizona. She trains gymnasts individually and has developed her own fitness program and teaches fitness. She also receives royalties from the elements she invented in artistic gymnastics.
The former gymnast looks great, feels good, she kept her previous weight (42 kg), monitors her diet - she mainly consumes fruit and vegetable salads.
Exemplar
The biography of Olga Korbut shows how the most ordinary, not rich and nondescript girl, thanks to her perseverance, hard work, spontaneity and courage, became a famous and beloved athlete by millions of people. Of course, you cannot take away her talent, but after all, each person has his own talents and abilities and can, thanks to perseverance and determination, reach significant heights in life.
Olga Valentinovna Korbut (May 16, 1955, Grodno, Byelorussian SSR, USSR) - Soviet gymnast, four-time Olympic champion, Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1972). She played for the Armed Forces. Trained with Renald Knysh. Olga Korbut graduated from the Grodno State Pedagogical Institute (1977) as a trainer-teacher.
Olga Korbut came to gymnastics in the second grade at school in the gymnastics circle of Yaroslav Ivanovich Korol in 1963.
At 10 years old in 1965 Olga Korbut got into the group to Knysh. The first great success came in 1970 - she became the USSR champion in the vault and entered the USSR national team.
Full name: Olga Valentinovna Korbut
Citizenship: USSR → USA
Date of birth: May 16, 1955
Place of birth: Grodno, Byelorussian SSR, USSR
Coach (s): Renald Knysh
Height: 1.52 m
Weight: 39 kg
Olga Korbut's achievements
4-time Olympic champion:
1972 - Team Championship, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise,
1976 - team championship
Two-time vice-champion of the Olympic Games (1972 - uneven bars, 1976 - log),
Olga Korbut - 1974 World Champion in the vault,
World Champion 1970 and 1974 in the team championship,
Olga Korbut - Winner of the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR and the absolute champion of the USSR in 1975, multiple champion of the USSR,
Winner of the silver medal at the 1973 European Championship in absolute superiority.
The first gymnast who was able to perform a somersault on a balance beam.
The history of artistic gymnastics includes the confrontation between Lyudmila Turischeva and Olga Korbut... Turishcheva personified the old academic gymnastics school, while Korbut embodied new trends in sports: risky elements, athleticism and youth. At the 1972 Munich Olympics Olga Korbut showcased innovative gymnastic elements and became an audience favorite. However, in a tough struggle for absolute primacy, she lost to Turischeva.
Since 1991 Olga Korbut lives in the United States, has American citizenship.
"Loop Korbut"
Olga Korbut was the first to perform the unique element “Korbut Loop”. The gymnast stands on the high part of uneven bars and does a back somersault, clinging to the upper bar of the bars with her hands. The element was performed during her uneven bars at the Munich Olympics.
Subsequently, the element was improved by Elena Mukhina - she added a screw to it. Currently, the "Korbut loop" is not performed at official competitions, as it is prohibited by the rules (gymnasts cannot stand with their feet on the top of the bars).
Family, personal life of Olga Korbut
After the 1972 Olympics Olga Korbut became a star of the air and was invited to tour in the United States in 1973. The tour was triumphant and is associated with the beginning of the artistic gymnastics boom in America.
In 1974, “based on” her biography, the feature film “The Miracle with Pigtails” was shot, in which she herself performed sports exercises (starring Irina Mazurkevich).
Olga Korbut ended her sports career after the Montreal Olympics. In 1977 she received a diploma from the Faculty of History of Grodno University. In 1978 she married the famous singer, lead singer of the Pesnyary group Leonid Bortkevich and lived with him for 22 years, has a son. They broke up in 2000.
On May 16, 1955, a talented athlete, honored gymnast, master of sports, 4-time Olympic champion, absolute champion of the USSR (1975), 3-time world champion, amazing personality and beautiful woman Olga Valentinovna was born in the BSSR (city of Grodno) Korbut. The legendary Soviet gymnast became the first girl to perform a dangerous somersault on a balance beam during the Olympic Games (Korbut loop). She is famous for her unique tricks and outstanding achievements in sports.
Childhood and youth
Olga's parents were ordinary people: her father was an engineer, her mother was a cook. In addition to the future gymnast, the family brought up three more girls - sisters Korbut. Olga is the youngest favorite. The wealth of an ordinary Soviet family living in a room of 20 m² left much to be desired. Perhaps this was the reason for the negative addiction of the young beauty - theft, with which she was caught already in a sports school and even wanted to expel, but the coach stood up.
Olga grew up amid the battles of the yard, which tempered her fighting character - stubbornness, unshakable willpower. At school, the girl did not differ in bright abilities and desire for new knowledge. Until the 4th grade I studied without "Cs", but then gradually "slipped down". Even the question of transferring Korbut to an educational institution for mentally retarded children was even raised.
In the 2nd grade, Olga's sports skills were noticed by the school physical education teacher Ya.I. The king decided to take a lively girl to the gymnastics section (1963). Later, Olya tried to enter the Children's and Youth Sports School, but initially the girl was not accepted, considering it a “fat woman”.
When Korbut was 10 years old, the girl again went to a sports school, where she met with Olympic champion Elena Volchetskaya, who decided to work with the baby. A year later, Olga got into the group of the honored trainer of the USSR Renald Knysh (1965). This person immediately saw talent in the young athlete, a grasp for new elements, a strong-willed disposition.
Knysh sought to create something new, unknown to the sports society. Knysh constantly fantasized, invented special elements and actively introduced them through the young gymnast. It was a difficult collaboration full of resentment, tears and gossip, but the result was success, popularity and fame.
Gymnastics
At the age of 14, Korbut became a participant in the Olympic Hopes youth competition. Olga made a splash by performing the most difficult gymnastic element - a somersault on a balance beam. They started talking loudly about the future champion. After that, the coach added a few more unique tricks to Olga's skill arsenal, performed at an unusual pace. This gave the athlete a new color.
The biography of the gymnast is closely intertwined with Lyudmila Turischeva, a competitor who personifies the old-style academic gymnastics school in her works. Olga, on the other hand, was distinguished by innovation and riskiness. Athletes were constantly compared, emphasizing the merits of both.
In 1972, during the Munich Olympics, Korbut lost to Turischeva, making a serious mistake, performing the crown number (biased refereeing). In the following performances, the girl became a favorite, won a huge amount of audience sympathy and 3 gold medals.
It was only in 1999 that shocking information about the cruel treatment of Renald Knysh (Ren) with his student appeared in American publications. This was the confession of Korbut herself. It turned out that in Munich, after Olga's victory, a drunken coach Ren had burst into her room. For several hours, Knysh beat and raped the 18-year-old gymnast. In 2011, Renald publicly denied the statement, expressing his desire to spit in the athlete's face.
In 1973, Olga, as part of the USSR national gymnastics team, went to the United States on a 20-day tour. There she was called the Russian prima, a miniature beauty, the popularity of Korbut knew no bounds.
The external feature of the girl was charm, small stature (152 cm), childlike spontaneity and incredible complexity of the prepared program.
After 4 years, Knysh transferred Korbut to another coach - Olga Alekseeva. For the athlete, this was a new format of training, because Alekseeva's methods were significantly different from the previous master. Kind, sociable, but confident and unshakable Alekseeva became a comrade for Korbut and was always there for the athlete.
In 1976, speaking at the Olympics, Olga won only 1 gold medal (team competition), but did not lose popularity. At 23, the girl decided to say goodbye to the career of a gymnast, she even thought of finding herself in equestrian sports. Later, Korbut returned to sports as a coach in the United States.
"Loop Korbut"
"Loop Korbut" is a free gymnastic trick - a jump from two legs back. This element was performed for the first time by Olga, therefore it was named in her honor.
Olga has been working on a unique exercise for 5 years together with trainer Knysh. Demonstrated a loop in 1969 (14 years old) at the USSR Championship. The girl every time felt fear, making a dangerous somersault.
In 1978, Elena Mukhina improved the risky element by adding a screw to it. Now "Korbut loop" is a prohibited technique in gymnastics, because the new rules do not allow competitors to stand with their feet on top of the sports equipment (bars).
The reason for this was the unsuccessful fall of the gymnast Mukhina in 1980 during preparations for the Olympic Games. The girl hit her head on the floor and broke her spine. The athlete was in bed for 26 years.
After Olga showed her enchanting loop, clubs, schools, gyms under the majestic name of Korbut were opened in the USA. An interesting fact is the creation of documentary videos, feature films dedicated to the life and achievements of the majestic athlete ("Miracle with pigtails" - 1974, "Loop Korbut" - 2007).
Personal life
Gymnastics fans know the love story of Olga Korbut and her husband, the lead singer of the Pesnyary group, Leonid Bortkevich. The future spouses met in 1976 on an airplane on which a team of athletes and a musical group flew to the United States on tour.
The gymnast chatted with Leonid, who was married at that time, for 8 hours, and a year later, having learned about the betrayal of his first wife, Bortkevich decided to call the young fellow traveler, being drunk. Olga rushed to his house, cleaned up, cooked dinner and left. In the evening of the next day, Lenya went to her hotel, and in the morning he told his mother by phone that he was getting married. Soon the couple decided to live together. After some time, the lovers played a wedding.
Olga Korbut and Leonid Bortkevich with their son In marriage, Korbut received a higher education (diploma in history). Olga often toured with her chosen one, dreamed of children. The years spent in dangerous sports affected the girl's health, but God sent the spouses a son, Richard. The next child from Bortkevich, whom the parents wanted to call Vanechka, was born dead.
Soviet pensions paid to athletes at that time were scarce. Olga regularly received invitations from America, but could not get permission to leave. The sports legend was "awarded" with cars, cash prizes, but all this was strangely appropriated by officials.
In 1989, the family won the right to cross the border. In the United States, Olga took up teaching. She taught gymnastics to American girls, wrote memoirs at the same time, and participated in television shows.
In 2000, Leonid returned to Belarus, the couple broke up, having lived together for 22 years. The reason is the constant tours of her husband, and as a result Olga's betrayal with a man 25 years younger than her. Young lover Alex became the second husband of Korbut, and the gymnast maintained friendly relations with the first.
In 2017, Korbut put up for auction her gold medals and some personal belongings (32 lots), earning $ 225,000. This served to spread rumors about her financial crisis and problems in her personal life.
In fact, now Olga Valentinovna already lives with her third husband in the town of Scottsdale (Arizona) comfortably and even luxuriously. The new chosen one David is the heir to a wealthy patron father and fully provides for his beloved.
The couple moved to Arizona due to low blood pressure from a former gymnast. Korbut is warm and comfortable here. In America, Olga has influential friends (, and others).
Korbut gave up gymnastics. Today Olga Korbut has gone into fitness, having developed an author's program. The Soviet queen of sports is in excellent shape, leads a healthy lifestyle (Korbut weighs 42 kilograms).
On the official website of the Russian athlete, photos of Olga's hobbies are posted: tourism, cooking, sports. The legendary personality also sells autographed photographs.
Son Korbut lives in Russia (St. Petersburg), is engaged in business, specialty - a programmer. Richard is married to a St. Petersburg girl, Anna, and they have a common son, Valentin (named after the father of a famous grandmother). Relatives sometimes meet, but rarely.
Achievements
- 4-time Olympic champion (1972 - team championship, beam and floor exercise, 1976 - team championship).
- Two-time vice-champion of the Olympic Games (1972 - uneven bars, 1976 - log).
- 1974 World Champion in the vault.
- World champion in 1970 and 1974 in the team championship.
- Winner of the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR and the absolute Champion of the USSR in 1975, multiple Champion of the USSR.
- Winner of the silver medal at the 1973 European Championship in absolute superiority.
