Cosmonautics Day talks about Yuri Gagarin's warm attitude to sports. If there was no romance with space, he could definitely become a professional athlete.
What did Yuri Alekseevich do?
It's easier to say than the cosmonaut was not carried away … Throughout his life, Gagarin was engaged in exercises. He even took the inhabitants of the entrance to the courtyard to jointly strengthen the body. In a vocational school, a kid from the village of Klushino, Smolensk region, received the TRP badge, which he dreamed of from an early age. (in Star City he organized the Nashi team), volleyball and basketball (and this with a height of 157 centimeters!), badminton and tennis, billiards and gymnastics. The list of disciplines that in different periods saved Yuri Alekseevich from a working routine included even water polo and motorsport (Gagarin was invited to races as a spectator more than once).
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Recall that the name of the cosmonaut is named after the trophy that the winner of the playoffs of the Continental Hockey League receives (KHL) since the 2008/09 season.
What sport did you make an invaluable contribution to the development of?
Yuri Alekseevich was fascinated by water skiing. In 1957, near Gurzuf, a company of young Muscovites introduced the future celebrity to a fascinating combination of skis, a boat and a cable. Boys and girls so skillfully rushed across the water surface that Gagarin immediately fell in love with sports for people who are ready to «test themselves to the fullest iron.» Time will pass, and the astronaut will conquer the speed of more than 100 km/h, overcoming the colossal distances between Yalta and Alushta.
That chance meeting with young athletes on the southern coast of Crimea seriously changed the astronaut's life. So much so that in 1964, at his suggestion, the Federation of Water Skiing of the USSR was created, and a year later the first national championship was held.
It's simple: Yuri Alekseevich became the Honored Master of Sports of the USSR thanks to the first flight into space on April 12, 1961. It may seem that «an outstanding achievement in the history of mankind — space flight on the Vostok satellite ship» is far from sport, but there is an explanation. Gagarin set the first world records in outer space:
- Record flight duration (108 minutes);
- Record flight altitude (almost 328 kilometers);
- The record for the maximum load lifted to the above height (over 4.7 kilograms).
Gagarin and his understudy German Titov were awarded honorary titles by nine-time Olympic champion in artistic gymnastics Larisa Latynina. .jpg»/
Whose fan was the legend of astronautics?
As a military man, Yuri Alekseevich «drowned» for CSKA. It was rumored that he did not miss home matches when he was in Moscow.But what an interesting story the famous singer Iosif Kobzon shared in his memoirs. In the early spring of 1968, the artist was on tour and at one of the gala evenings he crossed paths with Gagarin. A hockey match between CSKA Moscow and Dynamo was shown in the foyer of the hotel's concert hall. A fan of «Spartak» Kobzon decided to tease the astronaut and put a bottle of cognac on the victory of the «white-blue». Gagarin accepted the dispute and won.
Unfortunately, eminent fans did not have a chance to drink cognac. On March 27, the first man in space crashed while performing a training flight in the sky over the village of Novoselovo in the Vladimir region.
What did Gagarin say about sports and life?< br>
- «I had a friend who kept pulling me on the ski tracks, into the snow-covered suburban groves… However, I preferred basketball.»< /li>
- «For a military pilot, tennis is very useful. And what is good for pilots is good for everyone.»
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"Once in my childhood I read the words of the pilot Chkalov: "If to be, then to be the first. So I try to be and will be to the end.
- < br>«Sport is extraordinarily generous. It happens to give you a surge of much-needed strength, endurance and energy in the most difficult and even incredible life situations.»
- «People, those who cannot swim and are afraid of water are not suitable as astronauts.»
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«The main strength in a person is the strength of the spirit.»