Renald Knysh is a Soviet and Belarusian coach in artistic gymnastics. Honored Сoach of the BSSR and the USSR, Honorary Сitizen of Grodno. He was the coach of two Olympic champions Yelena Volchetskaya and Olga Korbut, as well as USSR champion Tamara Alekseeva.
Background
Renald Knysh was born on September 10, 1931 in Kapyl (tofay’s Minskaya Voblasts', Belarus). Later the family moved to the village Staraya Ruda of Zhlobin district. Soon, the World War II began, and the family managed to evacuate to the Orenburg Region. They returned home after the war.
Education
In the early postwar years, leading gymnasts of the Republic traveled a lot around the country with the exhibition performances and visited Grodno, as well. After one such event, Knysh enrolled into the section of gymnastics and constructed several gymnastic apparatuses at home to train. During his tenth year at school, he became the champion of the Republic among juniors. In 1944, his father was appointed the Head of the Department of Eduation in Grodno. In 1950, Knysh entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Grodno Pedagogical Institute (today’s Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno), but a year later he transferred to the Minsk Institute of Physical Training, but had to quit at the third year due to serious health problems.
Career
After Knysh left Minsk Institute of Physical Training because of strong rheumatism in 1953, he returned home and began his career as a coach in artistic gymnastics at the Grodno secondary school No 3. He worked hard in summer, when most coaches went on vacations, and their teams didn’t work. This gave a very good results, and soon Knysh’s gymnasts surprised everyone during the Autumn Republican championships, where previous second-class gymnasts performed with the master programs.
He worked hard, and two of his gymnasts became Olympic champions Yelena Volchetskaya and Olga Korbut, and one more gymnast Tamara Alekseeva became USSR champion. Knysh invented about 30 new elements in gymnastics, for which he was awarded the honorary title of "Honored Coach of the USSR" in 1964 (the title of honored coach of the BSSR was awarded two years earlier). After the 1972 Olympics, as part of the Soviet delegation, he met with the United States President Richard Nixon.
After the 1980 Olympic Games and the conflict with the most famous his gymnast Olga Korbut, Knysh was forced to leave the sport. He lived in Mineralnye Vody, Tallinn, Kaliningrad. In 1989 he returned to Grodno and lives there to this day. He writes poetry (began to get involved in versification in three years) and memoirs. He published a number of poetry collections and novels, wrote books related to sport "How to do Olympic champions", "In the Shadow of the sport" and others. He continues to work on drawing up the benefits that were used by the Russian athlete in preparation for the 2012 Olympics, but in the Soviet years they did not win approval from the sports management.