It was a Sunday in August: Olga Korbut entered the international stage of women's gymnastics on the first day of competition at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. It is her name that people remember to this day, which is still associated with the term revolution in women's gymnastics.
Why exactly Olga Korbut?
On that August 27th, the mandatory round is on the program.
All gymnasts have to present the same prescribed exercises, Korbut does not stand out.
Behind world champion Ludmila Turishcheva, she delivered the second-best result for the Soviet Union team, who are considered heavy favorites for the team title.
Like a completely clueless child
The next day the freestyle, 11,000 spectators, Korbut on the uneven bars: Standing on the upper bar, she jumps backwards into nothingness, turns in an open posture around her width axis, catches the bar on which she was just standing with her hands and swings further to the lower spar.
A murmur goes through the hall, something you had never seen before.
Even those who had no idea that this element, which was to go down in gymnastics history as the Korbut flip, was a world first and the first backward jumping element, is fascinated.
Korbut is visibly happy about her successful exercise, she waves to the audience.
When the rating is displayed, renewed applause.
Korbut, sitting with her teammates in a row of chairs, gets up, with a smile on her face, turns around in a circle and waves – and receives even more applause for it.
In retrospect, this was probably the moment when the Munich audience began to love Olga Korbut.
No one has seen this gymnast on the international stage before, she looks different and much younger than her teammates, like a completely clueless child.
"I noticed her with this parallel bar exercise," remembers Hans-Jürgen Zacharias, hall spokesman for the Munich gymnastics competitions and later vice-president of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG).
The Soviet Union wins the team octathlon.
August 30th, the all-around decision in the singles: "Everyone was waiting for this somersault, myself too," 88-year-old Zacharias remembers today and is convinced: "The special thing about her was that part on the uneven bars, without which I would have she didn't become famous." The young East German coach Christa Herrmann is also seeing Olga Korbut in Munich for the first time: "She definitely caused a stir, with her new elements and her charisma, they all belonged together.
She could sell herself to the masses.”
As Korbut prepares for her parallel bars exercise, it's dead quiet.
She stands in front of the bar with white bows in short protruding pigtails, the exercise begins with a simple cigarette butt.
Korbut doesn't lift her legs high enough and her feet get stuck in the mat, she has to repeat the element.
The mistake throws her completely off balance, and she botches two more simple elements.
Back in her chair, Korbut begins to cry.
Shaking heads in disbelief and disappointed looks in the audience.
After the flawless beam exercise that follows, in which she safely stands her second novelty, a backwards somersault, a woman – apparently a spectator who has entered the interior – hands her a bouquet of flowers.
Korbut accepts the gift and waves it into the arena, which in turn thanks her with applause.
Turishcheva wins the title, Korbut is seventh.