Nikita Nagorny and Yunarmia

Nikita Nagorny is a powerful gymnast and a powerful person.  You only have to see him with his family around him, or competing with his team, to understand that he is a strong and reliable man who looks after his loved ones.

For all of history, states and leaders have taken advantage of such a noble impulse - to defend those around them - by taking young men into battle.  In Nagorny’s case, the battlefield has been the gymnastics arena.  Here, Nagorny has achieved amazing things and I think it’s not stretching a point to say he was a hero at last year’s Olympics.  The World AA champion competed for his team whilst suffering from kidney stones.  As the final gymnast on floor, he made last minute adjustments to his routine that meant that his team took the gold medal.  He’s a good guy, hugely sporting and entertaining, and the first one to give a big hug to his rivals after competition, whether he is in first, second or last position.  

It is perhaps these personable and honourable qualities, besides his amazing teamwork and astonishing gymnastics, that President Putin saw when he appointed Nikita as ‘Chief of the Main Staff of the National Movement’ of Yunarmia (Young Army Cadets National Movement).  He was appointed in December 2020, and it seems to be a two year tenure that is awarded to prominent sportsmen, to inspire youth to participate in activities to celebrate the past victories of the country’s veterans and to promote pride in Russia’s national identity.

Nikita is not a military officer.  He has not stopped bring a gymnast.  He is a high profile athlete who has taken on a (part time) national leadership role to fulfill his duty to President and country.  Russia is a society where the military is highly venerated.  Russia lost millions of people during WW2.  Under Stalin’s leadership post war, many millions more suffered torture and murder at the hands of their own secret police, the KGB, an organisation who were much later, at one point, led by Vladimir Putin.

Yunarmia was established by Putin in 2015.  People didn’t know then that Putin was going to launch an all-out attack on Ukraine, but the conflict was already underway in Crimea and the Donbas region and Russia had already bared its teeth in Chechnya, Syria, Afghanistan.  Russia is a brutal country who with Putin as its President manifests evil intent.  Truth is distorted, fear is everywhere.  People try to live normal lives, but find themselves thwarted.  Perhaps the most difficult thing is to be themselves.  Dissent is not encouraged and just recently fear is on the rise; people are being arrested and taken to police stations, where they are interrogated and beaten - only because they may have questioned the basis of Russia’s war on Ukraine.  This week, a Siberian gymnastics coach was fined 90,000 roubles for removing the ‘Z’ symbol from the door of the children’s gym where he worked daily.  He was informed upon by his colleagues.  

Honesty can exist when there is courage and common sense.  Aliya Mustafina, now head coach of the Russian national junior gymnastics team (girls), recently responded to a question about Russia’s suspension from international sporting competition:

‘Children, thank God, are not very much involved in all this.  Therefore, they did not have to say anything, they both worked and continued to work, without a shadow of doubt.’

In other words, I decline to comment on this subject.

I find Yunarmia to be a disturbing phenomenon.  Especially the visibility of young people in what is becoming a theatre of war; there have been suggestions that 17 year old Yunarmia recruits might be deployed in Ukraine.

I am also deeply upset by the presence of Yunarmia at this week’s Russian Gymnastics Championships.  Nikita, performing in the team competition yesterday, didn’t do well here and to my eye doesn’t look entirely himself.   But you can see him for yourself, pictured amongst the young recruits, supported by a veteran in military uniform.  

I suppose you could say that Nikita didn’t have to take on the leadership role Putin offered him in 2020.  He could have refused.  But would you refuse Putin in similar circumstances?  At the time the job was offered to him, it was a great honour.  He couldn’t have known about the attack on Ukraine.  Maybe he even has family in Ukraine … But what would a refusal have done for Nagorny’s gymnastics career and future life in Russia, let alone his welfare and that of his family?  Putin’s Russia does not forgive traitors easily.  Nagorny is a proud Russian, and unlikely to turn down such a responsibility.

It’s unlikely that Nagorny is a blood thirsty war monger, more that he has become caught up in something that is beyond his control.  I doubt he thinks that Russia is wrong, but to second guess his feelings is impossible.  

I would feel inclined to forgive him his involvement if it weren’t for the feelings of his rivals, the Ukrainian gymnasts who have no choice but to fight in the war and defend their homeland.  Igor Radivilov has already lost two grandparents in the seige of Mariopol, Stella Zakharova sleeps in a bunk bed underground, Oleg Vernaiev has put on his military uniform and volunteered for active service for his country.  The Ukrainian WAG team has left home and is training in Italy while their families no doubt face  trials at home.  This is a terrible time.

Seeing the picture of Yunarmia and Nagorny at a simple gymnastics competition, among the gymnasts whom we have for long supported, is challenging and even chilling.  Why drag children and sports into war and killing?  It validates the idea that Russia had to be excluded from international competition.  It’s not good for Russian gymnasts and coaches, and their reintegration into the sporting community after this horrible war is over and peace is restored.  It is a smack in the mouth to Ukrainian gymnasts and to the rest of us who love the Olympics.

Was it right for Nagorny to accept Putin’s invitation to lead the Youth Army in 2020?  What would you do if you were Nikita?  Please comment below.  

Olga - a review of the film

It’s the soundtrack of the Ukrainian film Olga that speaks so much of the parallel between sport and armed conflict.  The incessant pounding of gymnasts’ bodies against mats and apparatus merges almost seamlessly with the grotesque explosions and thuddings of war erupting in Olga’s hometown, Kiev, during the Maidan Revolution of February 2014.   If the Olympics are ‘war, without the shooting’, then in this film at least gymnastics is the closest thing to sporting war that there is.  The gymnasts train with relentless intensity and bravery, and in competition fight without mercy.

Olga 15, is expected to make the Ukrainian national team for the forthcoming European Championships.  She is the only daughter of journalist Ilona who is investigating corruption at the highest level of Ukraine’s Lukashenko-led government.  Lukashenko is supported by the Russians, who want to quash a free, independent Ukraine. Revolution is bubbling under, and violence is never far away.  Olga’s mother is ruthlessly set on revealing the truth about Lukashenko’s regime and on promoting liberty for Ukraine.  Murder threats are flying around.    Nevertheless, Ilona persists. 

Like mother, like daughter.  Olga wants to compete at - no, win - the forthcoming European Championships and nothing else matters.  Her entire being is focussed on achieving her training goals and on learning the ‘Jaeger’ somersault which may give her a chance of gold.  She practices and practices and practices, swinging and turning and somersaulting high in the air, but the regrasp eludes her.  Time and again, Olga crashes stomach first to the mats.  Expressionless, she rebounds to her feet, remounts the bars, and tries again, and again and again. 

Olga grumbles in the car on the way home.  Her mother cannot watch her compete that weekend in an important selection event for the Euros.  It’s always the way, it seems.  They have a fierce, but brief, confrontation, then settle.  The lights of Kiev, a modern and sometimes beautiful capital city, shine as their speeding car approaches home.  There is silence and calm for the first time that day.

Suddenly, crash, the silence is broken with violent force emanating from somewhere outside Olga and Ilona’s previously secure little capsule.  The car is thrown about, Ilona loses control, they narrowly avoid being crushed by a rapidly moving tram.  Windows smash, glass everywhere, panic.   The assailant seems to pursue them, then disappear.  The car is written off and Olga is lucky to escape with nothing more than a bloodied arm.  Her mother survives unharmed to fight another day and nothing more is said.  

But then Olga finds herself uprooted and sent away to train in Switzerland, for her own safety.  The bloodied arm she received in a murder threat in Kiev is replaced with bloodied palms torn while climbing a rope.  There are conflicts with the coach as Olga ‘gets her feet wet’ and settles into the Swiss training regime, alongside the national team.  

Olga weighs up the Swiss gymnasts and the coach.  They are at a fair level, but she wants to be the ‘boss’.  She despises her new coach’s instructions to train the Tkachev somersault she already performs well, when she needs the more difficult Jaeger to make the grade at Euros.  The final straw is when Steffi, the team captain, is asked to show Olga what a Tkachev is.  Hmph.  Gymnastics has its own international language.  Communication is not the problem.  Olga knows what a Tkachev is.  She hops up and easily performs one - light and lofty - in a sprinkling of magnesium.  That day’s battle is won and Olga has earned her right to practice the highest difficulty.

She lives in splendid isolation, in a small but comfortable chalet overlooking a running track and the training hall.  It’s Switzerland in the winter, and it often snows.  Olga’s only friends - and, occasionally, her mother - are accessible on the phone and internet.  It’s a lonely, but purposeful, life and Olga often ventures outside, whatever the weather, to sprint off her frustrations, vent her anger at her mother’s preoccupations, and strengthen her muscles.  

Further conflict emerges.  Olga takes on Swiss citizenship so she can have eligibility to compete for their national team now that she has fled Ukraine.  The tables are turned on Steffi, who doesn’t like it much when Olga outdoes her in training.  Olga’s French is poor and she can’t participate in post training banter.  She suspects that the girls are badmouthing her, and she retaliates swiftly but bluntly in her mother tongue.  It’s too much on both sides.  Feelings bubble over.  Olga and Steffi wrestle it out. 

It’s tense; selections are underway.  Young Zoe is slung off the team; she just hasn’t made it this time.  Later, Olga supports the gymnast as she struggles to train the skills she has found difficult that day.  A good tempered magnesium war takes place between the two, chalk flying and faces coated in the stuff, leaving them looking for all the world like two painted warriors.   They become friends.  Zoe is quitting the team and goes home the next day, but gives Olga an open invitation to visit her.  

Olga’s place on the team becomes more solid; she continues to show the leadership qualities that made her the ‘boss’ in Kiev.  She supports her team mates and reassures a nervous Steffi.  

Her best friend remains Sasha, now the top gymnast on the Ukraine team, and they share all their feelings as Euros approach.  Sasha has become fervent in her support of freedom and liberty and regularly protests in the Maidan.  As her country goes through turmoil, Sasha has lost her commitment to the training that now seems secondary to her country’s struggles.  The bangs and crashes she hears each evening on the city square are quite different to those she creates on the floor mat in daytime.  Olga, now insulated from the War in her Swiss home, listens with concern but doesn’t attempt to advise her friend. 

The next day, in a Stuttgart arena for the European Championships, Olga’s dream is broken.  Recovering from the shock of finding out about a midnight assault on her mother that has left her horribly scarred, Olga performs a glittering routine on the bars, complete with a strong and flighty Jaeger.  She is scored commensurately, but she collapses shortly after and, we assume, can play no further part in the Championships.   Ditto Sasha, who forfeits her place in the competition by engaging in an impromptu verbal protest on the floor mat.  

Sasha’s story ends sadly as she is involved in an attack on a Ukrainian policeman.  The young gymnast is broken and the protestor realises the horror of war.  Back in the safety of Switzerland, Olga discovers that a broken foot may threaten her Olympic ambitions.  Lonely after a quarrel with Sasha, and facing only months of recovery while her Olympic  dream drifts away, Olga decides to return to Ukraine.  She attempts a desperate escape via friend Zoe’s house, but is thwarted.  In despair, she finally manufactures her early escape from Swiss  nationality and returns home to a now bright and airy Kiev where she is seen happily training young gymnasts.  For now, Ukraine is home.

The film brings home the idea of sport, gymnastics in particular, as an activity and community that transcends national and international barriers.  At the beginning of the film Olga is a gymnast above all, Ukrainian second as she pursues her Olympic destiny.  By the film’s end, she chooses Ukraine as her identity even though it means she won’t compete in the Olympics. 

Sasha’s story is somewhat different and even darker as she drifts from gymnastics to politics, then goodness only knows where.  In the competition hall the Russian team are worthy only of her contempt and coach Vassily is worse, his desertion of the Ukraine team for a better paid role in Moscow an act of treachery.  The boundaries between sports and politics become blurred and confused, and Sasha goes over to the dark side as she deserts the vault run to protest Ukraine’s right to freedom.  This particular scene played out rather unfeasibly in the film, I felt, but it was a strong interpretation of Sasha’s growing conflict of loyalty between sport and nation as the military conflict in her hometown overwhelmed her.  We don’t find out how she ended up after the Revolution ended, but the outcome of her conflict in the Maidan proved far worse than the scars, physical and mental, that Olga received during her sporting life.

Now, in the ‘real’ world, Ukraine is back at war and echoes of this film can be heard at every turn.  Life imitates art as politics overcomes sport and, once again,  Eastern European political destinies are played out alongside gymnastics’ histories.  Only time will tell if the sport can survive.

Ukraine needs our help at this time as Russia subjects it to horrific crimes against its population and environment.  The Ukrainian film Olga was screened at a limited number of UK cinemas as part of a benefit for Ukraine, but the itinerary was all too short, the showings were poorly attended and the run has now ended. 

I recommend you see the film as soon as you can; it tells stories on many different levels and is so much more than just a sports film, capturing the essence of gymnastics and the political conflicts that have punctuated history.  

Hopefully, it will be streamed soon but in the meantime, if you would like to support Ukraine, please make a donation to the Red Cross or to your local national rescue organisation working in Ukraine (Google it and donate only to known organisations).  

Slava Ukraina.  We pray for justice, mercy and peace for all of those affected by war.  

Gymnastics as an international charm offensive - 1972

In the beginning, there was Korbut.  Olga Korbut, who looked like a cheeky little girl and danced like a sprite.  Her gymnastics cut through the air like a ray of light. 

We were supposed to think that the ‘Russians’, as we called them then, were emotionless, efficient, stolid and severe.  Olga (in fact a Belarusian) forced us to see beyond our prejudices, to appreciate the person on the podium. Her team, the Soviet Union (which drew its athletes from across the 15 republics it reached) would never quite be the same again.

It was a diplomatic charm coup that demonstrated the importance of sport and culture as a means of fostering a positive sentiment towards the Soviet Union from its presumed enemy, the West.  Olga’s popularity was a mistake in many ways; Soviet leaders did not want unpredictable or emotional artists who were likely to say unexpected things, and they hated it when individuals struck out and wanted to find their own way.  The defection of Rudolph Nureyev in 1961 had left a scar on their face.  The last thing they wanted was a little prodigy sparkling her way into the hearts of us in the West. 

But then again she did bring something special.  Korbut’s appeal pointed to a fundamental contradiction in the nature of the Soviet state: the cold, black and white chill of much of its self-depiction compared to the colourful, passionate charisma of the country’s contemporary and historic cultural production.  The works of Pushkin, Tolstoy and Tchaikovsky were high art consumed by those with big, intellectual and elitist tastes in the West.  Their dancers were world leaders.  Even their circus was elevated to a form of art.  But few appreciated this.

Then there was Olga.  Olga Korbut, who came along and brought Russian charm and art to the masses.  Olga, who popularised Russian culture before the Soviet Union even realised that culture was its strength and that sport could be used as a soft diplomatic tool more effectively than as a signal of its state superiority.  

Gymnastics, with its balletic beauty and acrobatic energy cut through with behind the scenes brutality of gruelling training, and imagery of physical and mental bravery, spoke of the puzzle that is Russia.  Not dance, not singing, not orchestral performances nor poetry, but sport - the Olympics - brought Russia to our world, and Olga was the first to break through and pierce the popular consciousness of Russia as a source of great and mysterious beauty.