Olympic Flame Leaves Only Cold Ashes : Korbut, Ex-Gymnastics Champion, Decries Her Treatment by Soviets

Olga Korbut, who captured hearts and medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics, said in an interview published Sunday the Soviet Union treated her like “a beggar” after she retired from gymnastics and refused to allow her to capitalize on her success.

“They didn’t let me out of the country for 11 years, although there were a million invitations. They were keeping me out of harm’s way,” Korbut, 34, told Sovetsky Sport.

Korbut is looking forward to visiting the United States in October at the invitation of the U.S. Gymnastics Federation.

Korbut said she visited the United States last year and “was happy for the first time in years. Here I am out of favor, the wild flibbertigibbet, the workhorse standing in line for kolbassi (smoked sausage) for hours, the housewife tied down by care for husband, child, car and housework.

“There I felt loved,” she said. “They took me for what I am and knew what I had once achieved.”

Korbut won individual gold medals at the 1972 Olympics for the balance beam and floor exercises, and a team gold.

In contrast to Americans’ affection for her, Korbut said when she retired in 1977 from gymnastics in the Soviet Union, “in an instant I ceased to interest anyone, I was no longer needed.

“I didn’t expect to be fussed over, but they could have invited me to the national championships or sent me on tour abroad with the national team (or) said ‘happy birthday’ at least--they, the fathers of Soviet sport who made a career on my Olympic gold.

“I was like a beggar they threw a bone to, thinking, ‘Be glad that you get anything at all, that we tolerate your doing nothing for so long,’ ” she said.

Korbut never became the world champion but at 17 her talent transformed gymnastics into a mass spectator sport.

She toured the United States in 1973, performing before sold-out crowds and getting a red-carpet welcome by the Nixons at the White House.

Her Soviet teammates and coaches objected to the plaudits heaped on Korbut, and the official media accused her of self-interest. Two former friends and gymnasts stole her trophies, medals and souvenirs from the family home on her wedding day.

After her Olympic successes, Korbut was given an above-average salary of 300 rubles ($470) a month, which was later cut to 200 rubles ($312) a month. She was made national gymnastics coach of Byelorussia.

“But they wouldn’t let me do anything worthwhile. They’d tell me to go file the papers. They didn’t care whether I showed up for work or not. All they cared was that I didn’t say anything I shouldn’t to foreign journalists.”

“When foreign reporters got through to me, I was always beautifully packaged, a picture of total prosperity, as if to say, ‘of course, the country hasn’t forgotten its idol.’ ”

Korbut acknowledged that she does not work well within the Soviet system. “I can’t. I’m made of different stuff than that.”

“I am what I am,” she said. “And I never yelled ‘hip, hip, hurrah’ for (former Soviet leader) Leonid Ilyich (Brezhnev) or anyone else, for that matter. Had I gone and grown potatoes, they would have made a hero out of me.”

Korbut said she would have liked to have been a “peace ambassador” for the Soviet Union or opened a gymnastics school in United States or Britain.

“In the space of 12 years, I could have brought the state a mountain of hard currency and I would lead a rich and happy life myself. There wouldn’t be any sore sports or stress or helplessness or debasement,” she said.