ATHLETICS:Julian Drew
WHEN the iron curtain was swept aside in Bulgaria in November 1989 with the toppling of Todor Zhivkov’s discredited regime, the athletics career of Rumen Koprivchin crumbled too.
Back then when his life and all around him seemed in turmoil he would have given short shrift to anyone who told him that in 1995 his athletics career would enjoy an Indian summer.
But last month after his best season since coming to South Africa in 1992 the Bulgarian hammer thrower, who got his South African citizenship in April, was named in Athletic South Africa’s Olympic squad to prepare for Atlanta next year.
“I stopped throwing the hammer after the collapse of communism because there was no money left for sport anymore and I had to support my family. I made the decision when I got a good job with the South African embassy in Sofia as a bodyguard.
His job at the newly established embassy paid well in comparison to many jobs but as the situation in Bulgaria deteriorated he decided he would have to emigrate if he was going to provide a stable future for his two children.
“I got a few books on South Africa from the embassy and saw some videos about the country and I decided I would come here. I never intended to do athletics again but I was told by Owen van Niekerk (the head coach at Rand Afrikaans University) that if I wanted a job I would have to start throwing the hammer again. When I began training again in October 1992 I could only throw about 50m but it wasn’t so difficult to get back into shape because I had never had any bad injuries,” says Koprivchin.
Within 45 days he had established himself as South Africa’s number one with a throw of 65,76m. Since then he has improved each year and in March he beat Karl-Heinz Rheim’s 20-year-old South African all-comers record with a mark of 74,32m.
After the disappointment of Harare where he won the All Africa Games title by more than four metres only to be disqualified after an Egyptian protest that he had not held South African citizenship the required six months, he is now looking forward to Atlanta and an unexpected swan song.
“I hope to reach around 76 or 77m next year,” says the 33-year-old who’s career best stands at 75,54m, “but I’m going through a very difflcult time right now and I can’t make any promises.” Such a distance would have placed him sixth at this year’s world championships in Gothenburg. While he is unlikely to throw the close to 80m or more required to get a medal, that would still be a more than fitting finale for a man who only ranked fifth in Bulgaria before he gave up.
The difflcult time he talks about is the imminent prospect of joining the ranks of the unemployed when his job is terminated at the end of the year. Koprivchin was taken on by RAU as the manager of its gymnasium after he proved his worth as a hammer thrower but now there is no longer any money to keep him on. Although his parting will be a loss to the university’s sportsmen it is not the loss it could have been had he been utilised to his full extent. There can be few people with the wealth of up-to-date knowledge and international experience in athletics currently living in South Africa.
As was the way in Eastern Europe, Koprivchin was more or less a full time athlete from the age of 14 when his talent as a hammer thrower was recognised and he was whisked off to the Central Sports School in Sofia. “Everything was done for us at this school. All we had to do was study and train twice a day. It provided a very good opportunity for athletes to start preparing properly under good coaches from an early age,” says Koprivchin.
He was Bulgarian junior champion and went to the European junior championships in Utrecht in 1981 but didn’t perform well because of an injury.
A two-year stint in the army where he continued with his athletics was followed by five years at the National Sports Academy where he completed a degree in physical education. “You had to pass an exam to be accepted. But that was the least of my problems. We had to do all the different sports because physical education is very important in Bulgarian schools and you must teach all these sports and be able to demonstrate them.
“It was not easy for a man of 110kg to do gymnastics I can assure you, but somehow I managed. We also had to study biomechanics, physiology and anatomy and we ended up as, let’s say, 75 percent sports doctors. That is very important because if you train or coach you have to know about your body and your muscles and the effect training has on them. This was a very good time for me because not only was I studying the theory but I was also working with experienced international coaches and putting the theory into practise,” claims Koprivchin.
The last point is worth noting because not only did Bulgaria produce many world class athletes of its own but its coaches exchanged ideas and worked regularly with their Russian counterparts who, particularly in Koprivchin’s specialist area of the throws, are acknowledged as the best in the world. Koprivchin also worked in a sports laboratory for two years after he graduated which required a further six months of study. “We did strength tests, blood tests, and all the different scientific tests to help coaches monitor athletes. If you test the athlete at the beginning, during and at the end of the season then you have full information about his condition and the changes due to training and competition. It is an essential part of athletics but I don’t see anyone doing this in South Africa.
“Only now are Nocsa doing something like this with the Olympic squad. In fact Nocsa should be congratulated because they have an excellent programme for the athletes which has never happened here before and it shows that they are really thinking about how we should prepare..
“At least now with ASA and Nocsa I can say something new is happening and I’m very positive about the future,” states Koprivchin.
For now though he has more immediate concerns on his mind. He says he might have to give up his Olympic dream if he can’t find a job which will allow him time to train. But, with ASA still not having got round to setting up a proper coaching structure and employing full-time national event coaches, perhaps they are looking a golden opportunity of employing a national throws coach right between the eyes.