Gym coach knows about Olympic gold

Nicole James awaits the Olympic-induced enrollment rush at her Houma-based gymnastics academy. It’s an every-four-years manifestation, no doubt about it, and the elite-level coach on her staff is quite qualified to instruct these aspiring medalists.

Viktor Firsov, coach at James Academy of Gymnastics for seven years, reached the summit of his career when his pupil, Vladimir Artemov, achieved the all-around gymnastics gold medal at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. Six Olympic cycles later, the Russian immigrant who coached at the top level of world competition teaches upper-level students at JAG.

“Generation by generation, we had the best gymnasts in the world,” says Firsov during an interview at the Houma facility.

For James, landing an identifiable member of Soviet dominance was the best thing that could happen to the then-1-year-old gym.

“That kind of trumps everything, getting a Soviet Olympic-level coach,” she says. “We’re lucky to have him.”

JAG’s structure is aligned with USA Gymnastics. The national organization outlines the requirements gymnasts need to meet in order to advance between 10 levels prior to joining the Elite Program, which offers competition for national team aspirants. Firsov coaches gymnasts at level five and higher.

The Soviet Union has long employed a selection system to maximize the grooming of its athletes. Standout athletes as young as 7 years old were approached and put through a series of tests. Those who fared well were invited to study at specific sports academies.

Firsov, in a thick Russian accent, recalls meeting his future gold medalist for the first time as a first-grader during one such examination.

“He’s not real strong, but he has a nice body position, nice flexible,” he says. “I said, ‘OK, it seems like this guy will be world champion or Olympic champion.’ I said, ‘My eyes see what he can do if he will work.’”

Firsov went through the same selection process as a 7-year-old, but in his time he didn’t immediately go to a specialized school. He worked toward becoming a gymnast through his teenage years and, at the urging of his gym coach, enrolled at a sports university in Moscow at 17.

After graduation, he immediately began teaching others, which he says entails combining body discipline, or “sculpting,” with routine development, or “engineering.” There’s also the matter of a coach understanding the limits of developing gymnasts’ bodies and psyches, he stresses.

“It’s much important to be safe and to carefully work,” Firsov says. “They are supposed to be pushed, but safe. … It’s from experience.”

The glaring impediment to pushing a pupil too hard is injury (“All it takes is one turn,” Firsov says.) Artemov was sidelined for a full year with a shoulder injury, a loss of time that could have derailed his career, largely because he was still growing and needed the opportunity to practice while his body changed.

“But we worked in the gym and practiced the basics, like body positioning, flexibility, conditioning, everything,” Firsov says. “I just wanted to try to save him for the future.”

And the future was bright. Artemov was a member of the Soviet national team from 1982 to 1989. In that time, he won a gold medals in parallel bars at the ’83 and ’87 world championships, in addition to five silver and two bronze medals at the championships and his Olympic accolades. The Soviets won the championships’ team finals in 1985, 1987 and 1989 and finished second in 1983.

Artemov defected to the U.S. in 1990 and now operates a gym in San Antonio.

“At this age (a child), I remember (Artemov) tried to quit three times from gym,” Firsov says. “Lots of kids, it’s the same here and before in Russia, after 10 or 11, they quit, quit, quit. We need to make it more interesting.”

Now 61, Firsov came to the United States in 1993 and immediately resumed his coaching career in a new land. It was when James heard the gym he worked at was about to close that she started her recruitment.

“I got on my knees and I said, ‘I need you. We would be fortunate to have you, blessed to have you. No one in Louisiana knows more about gymnastics than you,’” she says.

Aside from her unashamed begging, James credits her knowledge of gymnastics on the world level for landing Firsov. (“I’m a total gymnastics nerd,” she says.) She rattled off Soviet greats during the interview process with Firsov, whom she had only known from an admirer’s perspective.

“I didn’t know him,” James says. “I called him out of the blue.”

James trained as a child with Bill Jennings in Schriever and earned a gymnastics scholarship to Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport, where she became an All-American selection and national all-around beam champion.

She received a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Grambling State University and went on to coach at gyms in Texas and Mandeville. In 2004, she moved back home and opened JAG with her mother, Brenda Powell.

In that time, the Venture Boulevard facility has served as the training ground for two regional champions – one in bars and the other in floor competition.

The target age for beginning gymnasts is 5 years old, James says. It’s at that time that a child’s coordination, flexibility, muscle development and focus begin to gel together. “If they go up to a handstand, they’re not like a wet noodle,” she says. “It starts to click. By the time they’re 5, they should be in gymnastics.”

The gym owner segues into a discussion about gymnastics’ role in developing athletes. Learning to propel oneself over a vault or flip between elevated bars likely won’t lead to a college scholarship, James concedes, but they do prime one’s body with skillsets that transfer to other athletic endeavors.

“Everything that you need to be an all-around good athlete, gymnastics encompasses all of that,” James says. “You don’t have to just be strong. You don’t have to just be flexible. You don’t have to just be quick.

“Gymnastics develops you physically and mentally for any other sport. Pound for pound, they’re the strongest athletes.”

Local gymnastics coach Viktor Firsov coaches Kira Chapman on the uneven bars at JAG. Firsov has gold medal roots after he coached Vladimir Artemov to Olympic gold in the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul. 

CASEY GISCLAIR | TRI-PARISH TIMES