Yuri Korolev - 1985 - 1988

1988

The beginning of this quadrennium saw Korolev make an impressive resurgence back onto the international competitive scene as he clinched the All-Around title by a large margin of .300 over Soviet teammate Vladimir Artemov at the 1985 World Championships in Montreal. With Bilozerchev (who had won the European All-Around Title earlier that year) unfortunately sidelined because of a severe leg injury sustained in a car accident, Korolev had more free rein to collect medals at this competition, where he also won 3 of the 6 individual event titles.

Like the midpoint year in the preceding quadrennium, 1986 was another stellar year for Korolev, as he won or co-won the All-Around at that year’s 2 most significant international competitions. At that year’s World Cup in Beijing, he shared the All-Around title with Li Ning, and came back to best the home-country-advantaged Li in the individual event finals winning 3 golds and 2 silvers vs. Li’s 2 golds and 1 bronze. Also, that year, at the first Goodwill Games in Moscow, among a deep international field, Korolev won the All-Around title again by a huge margin of .600 over compatriate Artemov. He logged the highest 6-event composite score in the preliminaries as well as again the in All-Around final, truly dominating the competition. That dominance stretched over into event finals as well where he snared 3 out of the 6 individual event titles.

1987 saw Korolev even better-poised to go into the succeeding year’s Olympics than at the same point in time in the previous quadrennium. Despite the very successful return of Bilozerchev and the rise of younger Soviet stars such as Valeri Liukin and Valentin Mogilny, Korolev still managed to win his 3rd European All-Around Silver Medal, behind Liukin, at that year's competition in Moscow, adding to that 1 gold and 1 silver in event finals. Even more impressive was his performance at the 1987 World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam. Although Korolev only qualified 4th among his Soviet teammates, compatriate Liukin had to withdraw from the Individual All-Around because of an unfortunate knee injury, freeing Korolev to compete in the All-Around final where he placed 2nd behind Bilozerchev and, buttressed by a perfect score of 10.00 on vault, even logged a higher 6-event composite score in the all-around final than Bilozerchev (or anybody else). (Under the New Life rules instituted two years later, he would have been World All-Around Champion.)

With the previous year’s successes established, it looked like Korolev would have another chance to finally prove himself on the world’s biggest stage, the Olympics, but fate adversely intervened again when he injured his achilles, making his bid for the 1988 Seoul Olympics impossible.