Sports Week in Moscow

In victory as in defeat, Russia keeps sports humming. This winter's program, the most ambitious since the war, opened New Year's Day in Moscow's huge (capacity 75,000) Dynamo Stadium. Men skaters raced for prizes offered by the newspaper Red Sport. Figure skaters gave exhibitions. But the main event was a hockey match between two of Russia's crack sport clubs, the Dynamo and Spartak Societies.

Boxing has suffered from the war: four champions have been killed in battle. But last week crowds packed the Palace of Physical Culture to watch a squat, shave-headed slugger named Nikolai Korolev outpoint the Red Army's Ivan Ganykin in four rounds to become "absolute champion of Moscow." Korolev weighed 198 lb., Ganykin 156. Member of the Order of the Red Banner (for his guerrilla fighting behind Nazi lines), Korolev boasts of his letters from Joe Louis.

Football (U.S. soccer) is Russia's biggest sport. But in the winter, skiing ranks No. 1. Editorials in Izvestia and Red Star have urged everyone to learn the sport both for health and military training, and last week the 110 ski runs around Moscow were thronged. Schoolchildren take to it like U.S. moppets to baseball.

Athletes from the Front. Russian athletes are not deferred, but soldiers get 10 to 20-day passes for specific competitions. The Government is emphatically pro-sport. (The Red Army discovered that its average draftee in 1939 was an inch taller and five pounds heavier than in 1932, and attributes some of the improvement to mass sport movements.) Ski championships at Sverdlovsk this winter will stress military patrol competition. January's sports carnival for youngsters has events in shooting and grenade throwing.

Like American poker, chess is a Russian indoor sport. Last week there was a big chess upset: Wizard Mikhail Botvinnik was checkmated in 50 moves by the Moscow titleholder, Vasili Smyslov.

Weight lifting is another Russian forte: Soviet athletes claim 25 world's records.* Last week Lieut. Gene Novak set a new one with a two-hand lift of 281 lb.

The U.S.S.R. has so far ignored Olympic games. But sports isolation has started to fade. Reported TIME Correspondent Dick Lauterbach from Moscow last week: Russia and the U.S. have a score of games in common (including basketball), and Soviet sportsmen are anxious to match skills with U.S. athletes, would welcome visits by American teams.

*Of the 40 athletes who have held them at various times, 39 are in the Red Army.

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