Triumph, humiliation and happiness of Larisa Latynina. The famous gymnast is 85!

Ballet

The childhood of Larisa Latynina (before her marriage - Diriy) was very difficult. She was born in Kherson shortly before the war, in 1934, and her father left the family when the girl was not yet a year old. Larisa's mother Pelageya Anisimovna was a simple village woman, illiterate, but did everything so that her daughter would not need anything. She dreamed of returning her husband and was close to this, but the outbreak of war prevented her. Semyon Andreevich Diriy sent a letter that he wanted to see his daughter, but this was not destined to come true - he died a heroic death in the Battle of Stalingrad, defending the tractor plant. His name is engraved among thousands of others on the Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd.

Larisa Diriy’s first big passion was a paid ballet studio that opened in the city. Eleven years old, she ran around studying with great pleasure, even thinking about becoming a prima singer at the Bolshoi Theater. But one day the section was closed due to financial problems. Larisa sobbed loudly - she had to give up her dreams of ballet.

But soon a gymnastics section opened at the school. And the young schoolgirl spent a long time glued to the windows, watching the girls train under the guidance of Mikhail Sotnichenko . Larisa herself did not dare to go there, until one day the coach himself invited her to classes. Ballet and gymnastics are somewhat similar, so it was not difficult for Larisa to accept all the requirements. She made great progress, surpassing even those girls who were older than her and got into the section earlier.

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Eighteen!

Whoever worked with Larisa, everyone noted that she was a future champion. Thanks to her character, Diriy always wanted to be first everywhere. Although sometimes she had breakdowns. Once, after a lost tournament, she refused to leave the locker room for several hours, sobbing bitterly.

Larisa Diriy won her first gold medal at the age of 19 at the World Championships in Rome. This was just the beginning of a long sporting journey. Of course, they believed in her, but few people imagined that she was destined to become the most titled athlete on the planet for many years.

In the period from 1954 to 1966, already under the name Latynina, the gymnast will win 18 Olympic medals, nine of which will be gold! In terms of the total number of awards and gold medals in particular, she will hold the championship for 48 years, until the legendary swimmer Michael Phelps sets an eternal (certainly) record - 23 gold medals, 3 silver and 2 bronze (28 in total).

Pregnant champion

As for the World Championships, here too Latynina will also collect a decent collection of nine gold, four silver and one bronze medals. By her own admission, the most important thing for her would be the victory at the World Championships in Moscow in 1958. The reason is quite unusual.

Article on the topic

Larisa Latynina: big money is harmful to sports “I was expecting a child, but not a single person on the team - not my
coach Alexander Mishakov , not the team doctor, none of my friends - knew about it,” Larisa Latynina told AiF.ru. “I had already decided to myself that I would refuse to perform: the risk and danger were too great for both me and the unborn baby. But Professor Lurie , with whom I shared my anxiety, said: “Listen to me, girl. I'm worse at gymnastics than you, but at ballet I'm a famous midwife. And I already understand a little more about medicine than about gymnastics and ballet. Therefore, I think that you are a brave person and you are capable of taking part in the championship. Don’t worry, the child will be healthy, the mother will be happy, and the professor will be happy.” Five months later, my daughter Tanechka was born healthy. The professor never found out any of this. He died a few days before the opening of the World Championships in Moscow. I will never forget this man.

[edit] Notes

1. Yulia Latynina
2. Lib.Ru: Yulia Latynina
3. YULIA LATYNINA
4. Access code
5. Singer and Russophobe Yulia Latynina about Russian nationalism
6. Exposing the cult of the Chechen
7. Politically correct liberal thriller
8. Russophobe Latynina about Navalny’s mission in the Russian movement
9. Latynina was pelted with tomatoes
10. List of enemies of Russia
    compiled by assistant to deputy Nikolai Kuryanovich
11. Yulia Latynina: “I’m not sure that a woman with intelligence is good”
12. https://politsovet.ru/38525-doverennoe-lico-putina-predlozhilo-ubit-zhurnalistku.html
13. https://twitter.com/eduardbagirov/status/214645502212440065
14. https://putnik1.livejournal.com/2081009.html
15. https://papasha-mueller.livejournal.com/1936118.html
16. https://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/russia/2014/10/141010_novaya_gazeta_roskomnadzor
17. https://meduza.io/news/2016/08/20/zhurnalistku-yuliyu-latyninu-oblili-fekaliyami
18. Journalist Latynina was pelted with tomatoes
19. Yulia Latynina: “My husband is Chechen, and he will kill you!”
20. https://echo.msk.ru/programs/code/2081460-echo/

Marry at mom's request

It is curious that Larisa married Ivan Latynin ... at her mother’s strict request - she really liked her future son-in-law. Larisa and Ivan met while the girl was studying at school, shortly before entering college. The young man was a cadet at a naval school - they were sometimes invited to school holidays. At the same time, high school girls frequented the evenings in the sailor. It was then that the future sailor hit on the beautiful athlete. But what’s surprising is that Ivan liked his mother’s girlfriend even more, who invited him and her daughter to visit him for a signature Ukrainian borscht.

And one day Pelageya Anisimovna made a strict demand that the young people sign, because during Ivan’s long trips other young people began to court Larisa. In order not to upset her mother, the girl agreed to become Latynin’s wife, although she herself did not want to rush into it.

In general, the marriage turned out to be successful, but after Latynina’s career ended, she had much more free time. And then it turned out that not everything is so simple. In addition, she found out that during her sports trips, one girl was looking after her husband. Divorce was inevitable, especially since Larisa also had someone to look after.

The best years of life - erase from memory

But the years spent with the second man were the most terrible in Latynina’s life. She gave a thousand interviews, wrote several books, but never, with anyone, did she raise the topic of the person to whom she left her husband. The only thing is that she once admitted in an interview with “7 Days”: “I left him for a person about whom I never want to talk to anyone again. This is the man I loved first. He shocked me with his intelligence, amazing memory, the way he looked after me - everything that I had not seen from my husband. And I gave in like a woman, and then I paid for it very hard in life. The best years - somewhere from thirty-six to forty-six - were gone. There were very strong experiences - betrayal, resentment, and humiliation. I wouldn't wish this on any woman. For myself, I erased these years from my life and will never return to them.”

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Apparently, it was during this period that Latynina lost her son Andrei . She never talks about this either.

Personal life

At the dawn of her career, Larisa Latynina’s personal life was going well. Her first marriage and life with her husband Ivan Latynin cannot be called very happy, but this marriage did not bring grief to the athlete. In joint photos, the couple look happy, continuing to be friends and communicate today.

Larisa Latynina with her first husband Ivan

The future spouses met while still studying: Laura studied at the Polytechnic, Leningrader Ivan studied at the Marine Corps. They were pushed into marriage by Larisa’s mother, who immediately took a liking to Ivan. In 1958, Laura and Ivan had a daughter, Tatyana. By the way, Larisa competed at the world championship while she was five months pregnant, and no one even knew about it. The marriage broke up when the woman, after living with her husband for some time, realized that they were strangers to each other. During the breaks between competitions and training, this was somehow not noticed. They parted calmly, without scandals.

For Larisa, family always came second after sports, but she devotedly raised her daughter. Tatyana did not follow in her mother’s footsteps by choosing dancing. She danced in the Berezka ensemble and went on tour abroad, where she met her future husband Rostislav. At that time it was a scandal: the daughter of a Soviet champion was marrying a foreigner.

Larisa Latynina with her daughter

However, times are changing, Tatyana has long been happy with her husband, and grandmother Larisa has already nursed two grandchildren and acquired great-grandchildren. Today Tanya and Rostislav live in Moscow, the man has a business there - a chain of restaurants.

Larisa Latynina’s husbands are a separate page of her life, but she prefers not to remember one episode. Such an “episode” is the gymnast’s second husband, whose name she does not mention either in her memoirs or in any of the interviews. It is only known that she left Ivan Latynin for this man and gave him the best years of her life. From 36 to 46 years old, Larisa Semyonovna lived with this man, deceived by the illusion of love and receiving in return only grief and suffering.

Larisa Latynina with her daughter and husband

The same mystery surrounds another chapter of her life. In addition to her daughter, Larisa also had a son, Andrei, whom she loved madly. The son died. The champion managed to survive this tragedy, but the grief remained forever in her memory, heart and soul. The cause of death of Latynina’s son is not mentioned in the press, and his mother prefers not to advertise the details.

A meeting with a man, her third husband, with whom she had been together since 1985, helped Larisa Semyonovna recover from her loss. Yuri Feldman met his future wife at a recreation center. The love story of these two people deserves special attention. Starting with small talk, a chance meeting grew into a romance and culminated in marriage.

Larisa Latynina and Yuri Feldman

Today the couple live in their own home. Larisa Semyonovna’s main hobby is gardening. She takes great pleasure in farming, raising livestock and poultry, finding happiness in simple family joys, which she so lacked in her busy sporting youth. True, in 2000 she suffered a stroke. And her daughter Tatyana categorically forbade her to stand upside down over the beds. But since she loves this business very much, Yuri made beds for her in greenhouses in boxes that reach her waist. And now she takes care of the plants without bending over.

In the same year, at the Olympic Ball, Latynina was included in the top ten best athletes in Russia of the 20th century. In the fall of 2004, Larisa Semenovna opened a gymnastics school in Obninsk.

Larisa Latynina and Yuri Feldman

Once in an interview, a woman admitted that in addition to sports, she always gravitated toward television journalism. She even hosted “Blue Light” in Ukraine in the 60s, and together with Vladimir Maslachenko she commented on the May Day parade of athletes. But nothing serious came of it. But Larisa Latynina is the author of several books, including her autobiographical memoirs entitled “Balance”, in which she told not only the story of her success, but also about the people who helped her achieve this success.

Also, several documentaries have been made about her life and achievements - the film “Monologue” was released in 2007, and “Legends of Sports” was released in 2020.

Engineer from Dynamo

And yet such a woman could not help but become happy. Shortly before her 51st birthday, in 1985, she met the man with whom she lives to this day. A fateful and largely accidental meeting took place in the Voronovo holiday home. Larisa went there to relax before the New Year, and chief engineer Yuri Feldman (Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Academician of the Academy of Electrotechnical Sciences of the Russian Federation and the International Academy of Electrotechnical Sciences) and his friend also received several days of vacation and a trip to this holiday home. Everything happened spontaneously - a man invited an unknown woman to play tennis, and she unexpectedly agreed because she had long wanted to learn how to play. Since then they have not parted with each other - and have been very happy for more than thirty years.

It couldn’t be otherwise for the most titled athlete on the planet. Happy anniversary to you, Larisa Semyonovna, and long life!

Yulia Latynina now

Since 2003, the writer’s inimitable dialogues with listeners on current economic topics, her signature deep and ironic reviews on socio-political issues can be heard on the radio station “Echo of Moscow”, where she is the author and radio host of the “Access Code” program. The broadcast format allows each listener to participate in the discussion, express their own opinion, propose an idea via SMS message or the Internet. Yulia Latynina. “Access code” In 2005, Latynina became a columnist for the electronic “Daily Magazine” and “Newspaper. RU". She is also an employee of the periodical socio-political publication Novaya Gazeta, specializing in independent investigative journalism.

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