Nikolai Andrianov, Olympic Hero

For many years, Collet's socialist bookshop on Tottenham Court Road, London was somewhere I went to find little treasures of Soviet gymnastics. It was a subject that was sparsely, often very cynically treated by the British press, and it is hard to explain how ridiculously valuable every last jewel of information seemed. I read more than I could buy, but remember the thrill of finding my first copies of Sport in the USSR. And there were, occasionally, books and booklets, too.

I stumbled across this little biography of Nikolai Andrianov when sorting through some books and papers recently. I love the look of it, the use of black and white photography, the presentation of Andrianov as a man of the people, the arty farty shots of the chalked up hands, the Olympic champion exhausted in a pile of foam. It was 95p, not much then or now, but worth a whole lot more to me, always.

I have a new camera, ready for my trip to Moscow later this spring, and tried it out, taking a few photographs of the book. I'm not a very good photographer, but I did want to share my moment of nostalgia. 'Sports are, first and foremost, competition. But this doesn't mean all means are good to beat your rivals. Soviet sportsmen live by fair play' reads a comment on the back cover, reminding me that this publication is, fundamentally, a tool of promotion for the Soviet state. But, then again, Andrianov was the perfect role model.