Open for Debate: Back to the USSR

By Pat Devery

The big question

Veteran observers of Olympic competitions may have picked up on it but to the more casual sports fan, the proposition that us humans have actually gone backwards in some athletic endeavours will sound outlandish.

Usain Bolt runs faster than anyone else, right? Simon Ammann jumps further than anyone else off a ski ramp and Shaun White's hair is longer than Cameron Ling's and redder than Andrew McDonald's. Faster, higher, stronger: tick, tick, tick.

Well, perhaps not. Some pundits believe that some precision sports have actually regressed since their traditional masters - the Soviets - stopped competing under the banner of the USSR.

The figure skating at the just-concluded Vancouver Winter Games is a case in point with many believing the competition across all events showcased a drop in technical standards from the days when the ice, just like eastern Europe, was ruled by Moscow.

So is it all just misty-eyed nostalgia for a time when fondue sets were hot and wars were cold? Or, are the Olympics poorer without the hammer and the sickle?

For

Google up a YouTube clip of Nadia Comaneci winning a host of medals at the 1976 Games. Go on, google it! Now have a look at the winners of the same events at Beijing, 2008. For precision, technique and simply not getting a bloody thing wrong, there is no comparison.

Now, Comaneci was Romanian, not Soviet, but the independence of her homeland was at best tolerated by the USSR due to its communist government and certainly the sporting regime Comaneci flowered under was influenced and catalysed by the all-dominant Soviets. If that doesn't satisfy you, have a look at some performances from USSR team members Nellie Kim or Olga Korbut.

But it wasn't just gymnasts who gave the Soviets that implacable air of Olympian authority. The USSR topped the medal tally in six of the nine Summer Games it appeared in (not counting Barcelona, when the 'United Team' also placed first) and in seven of the nine Winter Games.

Back then, the world was on the precipice of nuclear oblivion and the Olympics became a super-power slugfest between the Ruskies and the Yanks. It gave the Games an edge they no longer possess.

It might not have been the best thing for the world, but the Soviets squaring off with the USA was always great theatre - and no one can ever deny what the communist block brought to precision sports such as diving, gymnastics and figure skating.

Against

For every Olga Korbut produced by the USSR there were thousands of girls and boys chewed up by a system obsessed with winning gold at the expense of individual liberties and wellbeing. One need only look at the lengths gone to by another Cold War communist regime, East Germany, to come to the conclusion that the single-minded pursuit of Olympic success is simply wrong.

The Olympics are testament to our ability to push the boundaries of endurance, skill and courage. It is a celebration of humanity, not a grudge match between super powers.

There may never be another 'miracle on ice' or 1972 gold medal basket ball game, but so what? The contests were given an 'edge' thanks to the fear and mistrust borne from an age of unchecked nuclear proliferation. Surely we are all better off for the end of the Cold War, regardless of its effect on the Olympic Games?

Our verdict

Am I being naughty if I say this one is a toughie? Of course, the world is a better and safer place since the Soviet Union collapsed on itself in the late 1980s . . . even if it doesn't always seem it.

But that isn't really the question, is it? The Soviets undoubtedly brought something with them to Olympic competition and, mostly, that was an excellence and commitment that western nations learned to imitate to compete with.

No one would trade that for a resumption of the hostilities we saw between the east and west in the 1970s and 80s, but there does seem to be some sports that have slipped a little without the discipline imposed by an autocratic centralist regime.

On a completely different topic, those Chinese are devilishly good at diving . . . .