With the Old Year's Baggage on a New Road

13.01.1970 (Padomju Karogs (Talsi))

For the fifteenth time, the logical summary of the past sports year is the survey organized by the newspaper "Sports" about the best athletes, coaches, teams of the year, and about successes in individual sports. The results of the survey give a generally objective insight into what has been accomplished. We will also dwell on them in this year's first sports review. But first, I would like to recall the traditional New Year's survey of sports journalists from all over the Soviet Union, which determines the ten best athletes of the country. For the first time in the history of this survey, two Soviet Latvian athletes have entered the "big ten" - the absolute world champion in speed skating Lāsma Kauniste and the Olympic and European champion in javelin throwing Jānis Lūsis .

These two outstanding athletes are also the winners of the survey conducted by the newspaper "Sports". Lāsma Kaunistė's victory is particularly convincing. It remains only to wish her to reach the zenith of her athletic form as soon as possible - the European Women's Speed ​​Skating Championships will be held in the last days of January, and in another month the next World Championships, where Lāsma must defend the laurels she won last year.

In the "Sports" poll, Kauniste received two and a half thousand more votes than the USSR cycling champion Baiba Caune and three thousand more votes than the European and USSR tennis champion Zaiga Jansone. The top five also included young basketball star Uljana Semjonova and track and field athlete Anna Dundere.

Jānis Lūsis was only three hundred points ahead of world champion in checkers Andri Andreiko. In third place is cyclist Ringolds Kalnenieks, behind him - Latvian, Bulgarian and Polish champion in table tennis Uldis Eglītis and outstanding Latvian strongman Kārlis Pumpuriņš .

These are the results for the whole year. But if only the last month, for which there is no

If we had talked about it in our reviews, then Pumpuriņš and other republican weightlifters of the USSR, students of the Merited Coach Mikhail Fraifelds, would probably have ranked first. Five world records - this is something unprecedented! Kārlis Pumpuriņš was the first of the Soviet Latvian athletes to reach the 500 kilogram mark, and also surpassed the phenomenal Sven Karlo Kangasniemi's record in the deadlift.

Even more unexpected and therefore all the more impressive is the result of 23-year-old Riga native Gennady Ivanchenko. This middleweight athlete once again broke his still-fresh world record in the classic triathlon at the USSR team championship, lifting 495 kilograms! 

Kārlis Pumpuriņš did not manage to remain the only member of the "five hundred" club in our republic for long. In the last days of last year, he was joined by another heavyweight athlete, Arturs Sliede. His amount - 510 kilograms.

The Dinamo hockey championship team ended the year with a bang. Eighteen wins in eighteen games! Brilliant!

Of the sports in which our republic's representatives have achieved the greatest success, the survey participants ranked basketball in first place. Unfortunately, this is only the merit of the TTT championship team.

1970 - a jubilee year. It is very significant for Soviet Latvian athletes. This year the VIII Spartakiad of the republic will take place. It is important to prepare for it - this is the task of every athlete.

J. Brežģis,

(LTA)