A former cog in the once-powerful Soviet athletic machine visits Pepperdine.
By Kyle Jorrey
Sports Editor
Dr. Sergei Beliaev, a native of Russia, has a different way of looking at athletes. Where others see flaws and weaknesses, he sees untapped potential waiting to be unlocked by the secrets of the human body. Beliaev is a sports scientist.
Beliaev, who visited a Pepperdine physical education class Monday, was one of the select few researchers hired by the Ministry of Sport in the former Soviet Union to discover a method of training that would make Russian athletes the strongest, fastest and most physically gifted competitors in the world.
A former Russian national cyclist with two master’s degrees from the Moscow State Institution of Physical Education, Beliaev was involved in 15 years of ultra-extensive research to find out how Soviet coaches could optimize the potential of the human athlete.
“If you think about how the coach is perceived in America, it is primarily psychological,” Beliaev said. “In Russia and Europe it is viewed differently. The coach is seen as the human engineer of this person … and has the responsibility to make him able to perform at his best level.”
Starting in 1952, former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin put his government’s propaganda department in charge of Russian sports. Their duty was to show the capability of the Soviet model by dominating the international athletic world. For the first time in 40 years, Russia competed at the Olympic Games.
“The idea that was the younger generation had to be fit enough to protect the motherland, so a nationwide system of physical education was implemented,” he said. “But to a degree it was also a propaganda tool … one of the goals was to prove the superiority of the Soviet approach, social life and so on, and show that Russia would not settle for second place.”
Though the new system did benefit the Russian sports scene by allowing all children an opportunity to play competitive sports at no cost, a mandate was set among coaches and players on national teams — start producing positive results or face severe consequences.
“There was a lot of pressure on coach and athlete,” Beliaev said. “The Ministry of Sport would prepare a forecast of how many medals each team should win at the Olympics, and if a coach didn’t meet that benchmark, in most cases, it meant losing his job.”
To aid in the progression of Russian sports, Beliaev and his colleagues began their research on parametric training techniques in the latter half of the 1970s and it continued through the start of the 1990s.
To get an idea of just how extensive his research was, Beliaev said that for six years sports scientists recorded pages upon pages of medical data (urine, blood analysis, etc.) of 200 athletes competing for the Russian rowing team. Similar research was done on nearly every Russian athletic endeavor.
“At that time, the research was considered classified and was never released to the general public,” Beliaev said. “It was only available to the most elite athletes and coaches.”
Many of Russia’s most successful Olympic athletes during the 1990s, especially its swimmers, were trained using the techniques discovered and perfected by Beliaev and his colleagues.
But the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 meant the that the Ministry of Sport was dissolved, and Beliaev, who at the time was working as the international delegate to Russian sports, had to seek out a new source of income.
He and his wife, Olga, and their two children, relocated to Virginia and Beliaev began sharing his knowledge with researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University Sports Center. It was then that he and the director of sports marketing at VCU came up with an idea to turn their years of ultra-extensive research into a profitable business.
In 1998, Beliaev founded Super Sport Systems LLC, and finally opened up the secret methods of the former Soviet sports machine to the rest of the world.
“My job now is to coach coaches in all sports on how to get the most out of their athletes,” Beliaev said. “While before this information was classified, it’s now open to people of all ages who want to get the most out of their endurance training.”
The numerous contacts and friends he made while servicing international teams competing in Russia during the 1980s aided Beliaev in his venture.
Pepperdine men’s volleyball Head Coach Marv Dunphy was among Beliaev’s contacts. The two had developed a friendship after Dunphy coached the U.S. volleyball team in Russia in the early 1980s, and it was Dunphy who invited Beliaev to speak in front of his Coaching Strategies class Monday.
“I met (Beliaev) at a time when the Cold War was still at its height,” the coach remembered. “I mean, St. Petersburg was still Stalingrad … In those days, when the U.S. played matches in Russia, it was not appropriate for citizens there to cheer for us.
“(Beliaev) wasn’t a card-carrying Communist, and he was never very suspicious of me,” Dunphy continued. “ He was one of only a few people I met there that was pretty open to discussion.”
Dunphy was one of the first coaches Beliaev contacted about Super Sports Systems, and he received positive feedback.
“In their system, they had some real organized expertise, and it served them well,” Dunphy said. “Their training was very effective and they knew how to produce elite athletes.”
In class, Beliaev and Dunphy went back and forth sharing tales and experiences from the former Soviet Union, and gave insight on the relationship between the two nations shared during the Cold War.
According to the coach/teacher, those in class, many of whom are Pepperdine athletes, were very interested in what Beliaev had to share.
“I think it was a great opportunity for the students, and I think they got a lot of what he had to say,” Dunphy said.
September 11, 2003
