I Felt Like in Heaven (interview)

Oktobris 2008 (Sporto.lv)

It's easy to talk to Arturs – thoughts come quickly, insights are unexpected and sometimes surprising, Arturs often emphasizes that these are just his thoughts. One has to hear the facts about which athletes conceal themselves. Arturs believes that records cannot be achieved on their own alone, the medics must help. How permissible and harmless it is another matter. When I remind you that our youngest Olympic vice-champion in spear throwing, Ainars Koval, doesn't even want to drink vitamins, Arturs laughs so hard and says that Rasputins also hit life – it couldn't be poisoned, such an organism, but that's not the norm.

– If you look at your years in sports, you can say you don't regret anything?

– What do I regret – those were beautiful years. Remember when I was playing sports – there was no television, no radio, no computer. Sport was one of the opportunities to get out, to see something. I remember we told each other that next year we would have a match with the Estonians, let's go to Tallinn. It was an event. I do not say anything bad about today, it is developing in society, and there are other reasons for the joy of sports. It seems to me that in big sports, there will be fewer willing people and big sports will become one big business. It is run by professionals and has their own thoughts. The nation needs to play sports more for fun, that would be good. Sport is already often a process of achieving goals and proving oneself. Set yourself a goal, strive and achieve. It's not always a record – run this morning to that tree and back, I haven't been able to do that yet, it's my personal record. Big sports will not stay anywhere, and someone will always want to be among the strongest in Latvia, in the world. What it requires of the body, it is already up to everyone. Clearly, without chemistry you can't do it. Many have studied that in its pure form, bullets, for example, can push meters 19 and not 23. Now controls more tightly and much further than 21 meters no one gets. I think that in that bullet weight you should change something and start counting records again. But again, they'll figure something out – the medics are strong on both sides and the line between what is allowed and what is forbidden is very fragile. Those who fall in have made a mistake somewhere, either too much or untimely.

– Weren't that strict in your sports years?

– No, it all started somehow seriously around 1974, when I was already graduating. In my time, it was the norm that was not particularly discussed – how you would train without small rolls that were intended for women after childbirth or people after severe surgery. No prescriptions needed, nothing. The norm was two, I used to put in three fours, I know the others couldn't do without eight. It was able to hold huge loads. Those who reforgave were sad, many even left this life prematurely. I frankly say – I have 42 records and 16 are with chemistry. What's there to deny.

Fortunately for me, nothing serious happened with my health. I guess some common sense didn't allow for exaggeration. It also seems that you should not overdo it with premature sports - if you start at four years, how long will your body withstand the constant regime of competitions and training? Sport at the beginning should be like a game, the source of joy, and only later, when the body and mind mature, should begin a frantic struggle for points, places and records. But who has time to wait? You won't pick up the baby, someone else will hurry.

– What sport do you need to start with the fastest – athletics?

– Why only with athletics? Is volleyball worse then? There's a spring that's useful everywhere. But basically there are sports lessons at school. If you are not taught the basics of sports at school, do not develop the correct posture, a sense of coordination, then you will not fit anywhere. As far as I know, then a lot of teachers so leave the ball and train healthy. This does not go through if we think about comprehensiveness, about harmoniously strengthening the health of the child. Look at the crooked backs of children!

– Why did you try so many sports yourself?

– I liked volleyball, but then at some point I realized that I wasn't going to get very high because my 1.86 meters wasn't enough, the weight was also pretty hefty for me. I continued with the bullet, but at some point I stopped there too. I did best in weightlifting, where I corrected record after record. Perhaps it was simpler there, it all depended on the amount of work done.

Maybe he would have played sports even longer, but that was the time when the rules in weightlifting changed and forced him out of the program, the compliance with the rules was difficult to control. It's a pity, because squeezing (clean and press) worked best for me. If anyone still remembers, then in the push my record was higher than the performances of the legendary Vlasov and Zabotinsky, who both competed before me. Interestingly, I put on those 206 kg shortly after the car crash, when I still had stitches in my head. Crazy, right?

I still set a record in the doubles, but I didn't go any further, because then I had to change the whole training methodology.

In my opinion, it was the squeezing (clean and press) that strengthened the arms, the whole body, more evenly. My records stood for fifteen years, and only then the son of my old rival Oļģerts Bergmanis (I once took all the records from him) Raimonds Bergmanis, in turn, corrected mine. Raymond certainly would have achieved more, but he had svaks with technique.

Then came the era of Viktor Shcherbatich. Victor is a sober and strong guy, but now he will probably have enough for him too. I don't know what's next – the new ones are already there, but will they be ready for such a huge job? The sport is already so complex that the best need a whole brigade that controls every movement with computer accuracy. Can't spit in handfuls and build.

Psychological resilience is also important. You have to be very confident in what you're doing. You may not believe it, but there is forces that not only help their own, but also affect others. I made a little contact with the healers (those real, white ones), and they said that in Beijing, for example, when our basketball players were playing with Belarusians, some strength held strongly, and the girls only knew how to break through in the next games with tremendous determination. I'm not sure that Vasilevsky, who has a huge experience and nerves like stretchers, hadn't taken something away either. He's strong as a beast, though, and suddenly he can't get 85 meters here throw away. When sport becomes the calling card of the country, for many, all means are good to scare opponents.

Every sport is interesting. I remember that in volleyball, we ten boys were like one fist. Even the daughters went together. We watched a team of girls and aid! We were a unit.

In athletics, it was different. There was more competition there and everyone thought for themselves. In Russian times, there was no shortage of reasons to hang out – too much caught here, here abroad sold a sniff, here you met a compatriot. Report so, and your competitor will be nowhere to go.

It wasn't in weightlifting, we finished the matches and sent the coach to the store for wine and sausage. Perhaps because the scales were lifted more by country boys. They were simpler and more sincere. I myself am a resident of Riga, but all summers I live in the countryside – I know how to both art and mow. No, I found every sport interesting.

– If we're talking about our country, don't you think we have too many of those sports?

– No, you don't have to do anything artificially. To play sports, and then already see how serious. Did anyone think anything about BMX when they started? Likewise, about the bobsleigh, who needed it back then?

Likewise, many sports have begun, but then naturally died. Apparently it wasn't doomed. Life and people will already show everything.

Another thing is that we lack a base for basic sports. The fact that there are no serious stadiums for athletics in Riga is a crime. Run, jump, these are already basic movements. Once it will take revenge, when there will be no Olympic team or half athletics. That's something to think about.

We don't have those millionaire shivermans in athletics like we do in football and hockey. They make halls and squares one after another, although for Latvians they are, in my opinion, not the most suitable for sports ways. We are already such a thinking nation, and just running or skating is not really in our nature. Well, we're not going to win anything in football, it's good that we're holding on to hockey, but there's more of that money luring. It's also strange with that money – if you don't become a millionaire, then you're thrown out of a boat after playing sports – neither your profession nor your work skills. That's why many former athletes also get drunk and otherwise waste their lives. Everyone can't already get millions as a Comrade and live on wisely.

– What are you doing right now?

– When I finished playing sports, I realized that you can't drop all physical activities at once – the body so it's been a long time coming, that you have to leave little by little. I lifted the weights, broke with my hands. I did not use my higher education – automation and computing technology, which I acquired at the Riga Polytechnic Institute, because this whole industry was developing so rapidly that my paper was more formal than valid for life. I haven't been without work for a second. Now I live according to myself, I am calm,

I didn't survive trivial things, I worked in a warehouse, I lifted weights. Not bags of potatoes, but over a dozen kilograms though. That's how I keep myself in shape and feel good. I help my son who is studying in America. Jacob also plays sports, throws a vest. True, sport is not an end in itself for him, he sports more for pleasure.

– If you look back at my years in the sport, would you have done anything differently?

– You don't have to think about what you can't change?" I'm happy with my sports. I got a lot of fun. Its feelings are difficult to describe. I agree with the Olympic champion in weightlifting Yuri Vlasov, who later became a writer – when I win, I feel like I'm in heaven. I had that too – when I got an important victory, I reached some set limit, then I flew away. At such a moment, all the cruel work is forgotten, all that you have given up. You hear applause, someone hugs you, another gives you mineral water, tears of joy in your father's eyes. It is a heavenly joy, and it cannot be taken away. Where else are you, Latvian boy, going to get something like this?

Arturs Sliede: volleyball  player, athletics, weightlifter

Born: 5 July 1943 in Riga

Major achievements

- All-Union Student Volleyball Champion

- Latvian champion, three-time vice-champion, two-time bronze winner in bullet pushing (1962-1969), multiple Latvian youth record holder in bullet pushing, best result 16.66 m

- Five-time Latvian weightlifting champion (1967-1973) was the Latvian record holder 42 times

weightlifting, still the Latvian record holder in weightlifting triathlon and sprinting (in 1973 the triathlon was replaced by a two-fight fight), the best results – pulling 158 kg, pushing 206 kg, pushing 212.5 kg, triathlon 565 kg, two-fight 370 kg

Family: married, 3 children

(Andris Staģis statistics)

Juris BĒRZIŅŠ-SOMS