Soviet Union top ten athletes of the year explained

Since a certain time until 1991 in the end of each year the Federation of Sports Journalists of the USSR held an inquest among its members to name top ten athletes of the year of the USSR. Here is a list of them.

List

1971

• Vasily Alexeyev (Athlete of the Year)
• Yevgeniy Arzhanov
• Valeriy Borzov
• Alexander Medved
• Faina Melnik
• Boris Onishchenko
• Lyudmila Pakhomova and Alexander Gorshkov
• Irina Rodnina and Aleksei Ulanov
• Nina Statkevich
• Ludmilla Tourischeva

1972

Alphabetical order.

• Mykola Avilov
• Vasily Alexeyev
• Valeriy Borzov
• Lyudmila Bragina
• Olga Korbut
• Galina Kulakova
• Alexander Medved
• Viktor Saneyev
• Ludmilla Tourischeva
• Vyacheslav Vedenin

1973

• Irina Rodnina (Athlete of the Year)
• Ludmilla Tourischeva
• Faina Melnik
• Galina Shugurova
• Nadezhda Chizhova
• Valeri Kharlamov
• Pavel Pervushin (weightlifting)
• Levan Tediashvili
• Pavel Lednev
• Anatoly Karpov

1975

• Tatyana Averina
• Sergei Belov
• Oleg Blokhin
• Irina Kalinina
• Anatoly Karpov
• Yevgeny Kulikov
• Pavel Lednev
• Zebinisso Rustamova
• Ludmilla Tourischeva
• Alexander Yakushev

1979

Ordered by number of points:

1. Boris Mikhailov (Athlete of the Year)
2. Vladimir Salnikov
3. Yurik Vardanyan
4. Anatoly Karpov
5. Alexander Dityatin
6. Natalya Linichuk and Gennadi Karponossov
7. Sergei Sukhoruchenkov
8. Lyudmila Kondratyeva
9. Galina Kulakova
10. Nellie Kim

1983

• Tamara Bykova (Athlete of the Year)
• Dmitry Bilozerchev
• Vladimir Salnikov
• Garry Kasparov
• Natalia Yurchenko
• Yurik Vardanyan
• Vladislav Tretyak
• Anatoly Starostin
• Fyodor Cherenkov
• Sergei Litvinov

1984

Announced on December 28, 1984.

• Sergey Bubka (Athlete of the Year)
• Yurik Vardanyan
• Yuri Sedykh
• Oleg Bozhev
• Anatoly Beloglazov (wrestling)
• Sergei Zabolotnov
• Nikolay Zimyatov
• Elena Valova and Oleg Vasiliev
• Sergei Kopylov
• Olga Mostepanova

1986

Announced on December 27, 1986.

• Sergey Bubka (Athlete of the Year)
• Igor Belanov
• Igor Zhelezovski
• Yury Zakharevich
• Garry Kasparov
• Igor Polyansky
• Arvydas Sabonis
• Yuri Sedykh
• Marina Stepanova
• Andrei Chesnokov

1988

Ordered by number of points:^[1]

1. Vladimir Salnikov (Athlete of the Year)
2. Sergey Bubka
3. Arvydas Sabonis
4. Vladimir Artemov
5. Yuri Zakharevich
6. Yelena Shushunova
7. Alexei Mikhailichenko
8. Tatyana Samolenko-Dorovskikh
9. Tamara Tikhonova
10. Gintautas Umaras

1989

Ordered by number of points:^[2]

1. Garry Kasparov (Athlete of the Year)
2. Elena Välbe
3. Fyodor Cherenkov
4. Igor Korobchinsky
5. Svetlana Boguinskaya
6. Radion Gataullin
7. Alexandra Timoshenko
8. Igor Zhelezovski
9. Israel Akopkokhyan (boxing)
10. Alexander Karelin

1990

Ordered by number of points:^[3]

1. Garry Kasparov (Athlete of the Year)
2. Elena Välbe
3. Andrei Cherkasov
4. Sergei Yuran
5. Anatoly Khrapaty
6. Jüri Jaanson
7. Radion Gataullin
8. Alexander Karelin
9. Svetlana Boginskaya
10. Andrey Kurnyavka (boxing)

References

1. News: The country is proud of them - the world knows them. Sovetsky Sport. Russian . 1988-12-27.
2. News: Top 10 in 1989. Sovetsky Sport. Russian . 1989-12-29.
3. News: Top ten in 1990. Sovetsky Sport. Russian . 1990-12-29.

• Book: Panorama of the 1971 Sports Year. 1972. Fizkultura i sport. Moscow. Russian.
• Book: Panorama of the 1972 Sports Year. 1973. Fizkultura i sport. Moscow. Russian.
• Book: Panorama of the 1973 Sports Year. 1974. Fizkultura i sport. Moscow. Russian.
• Book: Panorama of the 1975 Sports Year. 1976. Fizkultura i sport. Moscow. Russian.
• Book: Panorama of the 1979 Sports Year. 1980. Fizkultura i sport. Moscow. Russian.
• Book: Panorama of the 1983 Sports Year. 1984. Fizkultura i sport. Moscow. Russian.
• Book: Panorama of the 1984 Sports Year. 1985. Fizkultura i sport. Moscow. Russian.
• Book: Panorama of the 1986 Sports Year. 1987. Fizkultura i sport. Moscow. Russian.

Further reading

• Evelyn Mertin, Presenting Heroes. Athletes as Role Models for the New Soviet Person. In: The International Journal of the History of Sport 26(3)(Regional Issue: Europe, Regional Academic Editor: Thierry Terret), 2009, pp. 469–483.