Ski jumping has never been our trump card in winter sports. Throughout the long history of competitions in this discipline, great successes can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Gary Napalkov has won the World Championship twice, and the only Olympic gold has been won by Vladimir Belousov, who turned 77 today. Moreover, this victory was awarded to the Soviet athlete at a very, very high price.
the whims of time
Belousov did not perform very well on the usual springboard, taking only eighth place. And on the day of the prize draw as follows, everything seemed to be against one of the Soviet athletes placing in the top three. The participants were hampered by a strong wind, moreover, as Vladimir Pavlovich later recalled, it turned out that someone sprinkled salt on the acceleration mountain in front of a large springboard, eventually turning the coating into mush.
After a fair protest by jumpers, new snow was brought to the mountain. But the conditions only worsened because of this: several different layers of snow, moreover, quite icy, made the repulsion completely unpredictable. However, Vladimir won both attempts, and in any other situation he would have already accepted congratulations on a well-deserved Olympic gold.
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But the weather suddenly improved, and the organizers took the unprecedented step of canceling the results of the first attempt and forcing the athletes to jump a third time. In such a situation, many could psychologically collapse, and the supply of physical strength in such a technically complex form is far from unlimited. But Belousov was able to rally for the third attempt, and he again became the best.
As Vladimir repeatedly said in his interviews, love became an additional incentive: before flying to Grenoble, he promised the girl that he would bring a medal, but she did not believe. So I had to resort to additional forces and defend my right to keep my promise.
robbed twice
That’s just the material evidence of that victory, Vladimir Belousov was deprived. The then President of France, Charles de Gaulle, set a prize for the champion on a huge springboard – a car, but Grenoble, the victor, never saw it. Belousov claims that he guesses who finally got the foreign car, but after many decades he doesn’t want to name names, he doesn’t want to stir up the past.
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And in the 90s, Vladimir Pavlovich lost his most expensive award – the Olympic gold medal. Together with her, the robbers brought gifts from the King of Norway for two victories at the Holmenkollen Games. This situation seriously hit the health of the famous athlete.
In 2015, the IOC, at the request of the Russian Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined Federation, made a duplicate of the award, which was presented to Belousov in a solemn atmosphere. But the trace in the soul of the legendary flying skier of two undeserved insults has remained to this day.
