Irina
Kirillova/Parkhomchuk
(URS/HRV) |
 I
am of those who thinks that when a setter is awarded the prize of Most
Valuable Player it means that the whole team worked well, and that the
distribution of sets made not one hitter stand out, but all five of them.
Setters don't usually get this type of recognition but they're accustomed
to it. Their's is a silent leadership most of the time, because the
offence of the team has to be carried out by a cool-headed, calculating,
and confident person, not a yeller and screamer on the verge of a
flip-out. Witness all of these following names: Irina Kirillova, Fernanda
Venturini, Rosa
García, Yang
Xilan, Lori Endicott, Kumi
Nakada, Tatyana
Grachova, Dorte Stüdemann, and the current Maurizia
Cacciatori, He Qi, Yelena Vassilievskaia, Hélia "Fofão" Souza,
and the Korean setter, I cannot remember her name. All of these setters
never lost their calm, because they knew that the confidence of the
attackers rested on their own composure. For the Cubans, more emotion is
allowed since, after all, there are two setters for every sextet, and the
fact that they are also hitters who scream after putting down a ball is
part of their strategy. But most other setters in the world are very quiet
and low-profile—you just don't want to see the brain of the team lose it
on the court! Which is the reason why Irina Kirillova deserves so much
praise for doing what she did, enduring what she went through, and pulling
off an amazing performance that will go down in the record books as one of
the most mentally challenging tests an athlete has had to go through in
the sport of volleyball. But first some background...
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Irina began playing with the Adult
National Team of the USSR prior to the '86 World's in which the still
irregular team was learning how to bring together all of its talent. Irina
knew that she had enormous potential around her: dynamic middle hitter Valentina
Ogienko as her main weapon, Irina
Smirnova as her powerful outside hammer, and Yelena
Chebukina as the simple but dependable middle hitter. By
the time they reached the '87 Japan Cup, Irina was feeding Smirnova back
row sets that the puffy readhed was pounding with incredible fashion.
Smirnova became one (if not the) first full-time consistent
back-row attacker in the world thanks to Kirillova's confidence in her
hitting. But one could see that Irina concentrated greatly before every
set, scurrying about the court with both hands up, and with an almost
amateur pose, whisking her hands in any direction and setting an
unexpected ball to any of her players. Middle shoots or slides to Ogienko,
short balls to Chebukina, high medium balls to Smirnova in the centre of
the court, and even hitting some balls herself when she was ready with an
approach.
But her classic play, and one that she will always be remembered for, was her self-faking set to the middle. It went like this: generally when a free ball was passed over the net, the Soviet passers would give Irina a tighter ball than usual, and the setter would jump and pretend to swing at the ball; at the same time, the middle hitter was already taking an approach for a quick ball in front of Irina, and instead of hitting, she would rotate her body in mid-air and set the middle hitter. It was a sure kill 99% of the time, and it required quickness on both the setter and the hitter's part. Sure we see the Japanese or Chinese do these kind of things, mainly by lefties like Aki Nagatomi or Cui Yongmei, but most of the time when they go up pretending to hit the second ball, they will actually hit it. Very rarely will they go up, and retract their arm in mid swing to set a short ball in front of them. Irina Kirillova could do that, and coming from a Soviet setter, it was all the more impressive. So with all these weapons at her disposal, Irina Kirillova showed the world who she was at the '88 Olympic final in Seoul. The rival, a Peruvian team with less tradition than the Soviets, less height and less strength, but with an amazing heart and street savvy to face the Soviet sport's machine. And for the first two sets it seemed like the barrios of the third world were going to prevail over the rigid structure of the second world. Peru won the first two sets in such an unexpected way that the country was on the verge of celebrating. But what was going on inside Irina's head? I would love to ask her, and what did she think when Peru reached 12 and she was stuck with 6? Three points and it would all be over, but then the horn blew: time-out. Did she fear what her coach was going to say to her? Or was she grateful that the time-out stopped the Peruvian streak towards the gold medal? Whichever one it was, Kirillova stood by the screaming Nikolai Karpol fully concentrated on what she was going to do. Remounting such an adverse score in no less than the Olympic final wasn't going to be easy, and Karpol certainly knew it. But I guess his style is not to be cautious when you have everything to lose, so he allowed himself no civility in pushing Kirillova to the edge. |
After the yelling and the hollering which was mostly directed at her, play resumed and Irina quickly found her answers by exploiting every single nook and cranny that the Peruvians gave her. Soon she tied the third set and then won it. The match was just now starting! She returned to the fourth equally determined and won that one as well. A fifth set to decide who would take the gold. But the Peruvians weren't going to simply give up, and they tied the USSR at 14, then they went up to 15. Another reason for Peru to nearly celebrate, but Kirillova stopped their cheers by good setting choices that lifted her team to 16. An error by the Peruvians and a good block by Smirnova sealed it all for them. Irina Kirillova and her teammates had pulled off the unbelievable, and such was the degree of mental exhaustion that I read somewhere that some of the Soviet players had to be taken away on stretchers. I don't know to what extent this was true, but I would imagine Irina was the one given oxygen to prevent her from hyperventilating from crying of joy. This type of incredible feats are what people refer to when they speak of "leaving it all out on the court". < At the '95 World Cup in Japan, Irina Kirillova took her newly adopted country to a surprising fourth place finish. Russia didn't participate, for some bizarre reason, leaving Croatia the perfect chance to get into the top four. Croatia could have qualified for Atlanta had they won some close 5-set matches, but they narrowly missed Olympic qualification. Here she blocks against Mireya Luis. [Photo: FIVB Archives] |
| After Seoul, Irina's confidence
remained at a very high level, as did that of all her teammates. They
rolled over most of the world's teams (with the exception of Cuba at the
'89 World Cup) but at the '90 World's in China they steamrolled their
way to the final against the hosts. In front of thousands of Chinese
fans cheering their team led by the legendary Lang
Ping (who had been brought back from inactivity in the
hopes of winning a third consecutive world title for her country), the
Soviet Union overpowered the Chinese by 3-1 and took its second major
international competition to be the best team at the turn of the decade.
To make matters even sweeter, Irina Kirillova was awarded the prize for
the tournament's Most Valuable Player, an indication that the team was
working very well as a whole. Irina's smile at the podium with her MVP
award was such a pleasing sight for all of those who knew what she had
endured to get there. But the story doesn't end there.
After winning the world title, I don't know what happened between her and Karpol, some say they had irreconcilable differences, but after playing with him for his club in Zagreb, Irina Kirillova defected from the Soviet Union and became a Croatian citizen. Karpol must have been furious with her, but he quickly grabbed Marina Nikulina and made a setter out of her, teaching her every move of Kirillova's to pick up where she left. And believe it or not, for a crash course on world-class setting Nikulina didn't do bad at all! But the team sorely missed Irina's setting, her vitality, her natural grace at being deceptive. Nikulina learned it all textbook style, and it was effective but it wasn't as free flowing. It seemed like she learned it more out of pressure than out of free will. Because becoming the setter of the Soviet team meant becoming the target of Karpol's furious screams, who in their right minds wanted to take on this daunting task? At the '91 FIVB Gala Match, Nikulina got her first chance at replacing Kirillova at the helm of her team, and she did quite a good job, though losing both matches 3-1 and 3-2 against an amazing All-Star team. For Irina Kirillova, however, it was a different story from then on. She was invited to become the prime setter for the Croatian team, in a much more relaxed atmosphere and with a coach that was nowhere as frenzied as Karpol. And I guess she must've liked this new environment because soon after two of her Soviet teammates followed suit! In '93 Yelena Chebukina and Tatyana Sidorenko moved to Croatia and also were included in the National Team. After '94 Russia's backup setter Maria Likhtenshtein did the same, I would guess for the same reasons as Irina Kirillova. I saw her get yelled at during the Goodwill Games in Saint Petersburg and I wouldn't be surprised if Irina called her up and said, "Come over to Croatia. No one will yell at you here!" |
| Maybe Irina Kirillova (as she
is known in Croatia) hasn't seen victories like she did under Karpol's
guidance, and her highest placement at an international competition was
a surprising 4th place at the '95 World Cup in Japan, after Cuba,
Brazil, and China. But then Croatia failed to qualify for the Atlanta
Olympics and Irina didn't see much play until the '98 World
Championships in Japan. Even then, she has been ceding more time to
Maria Likhtenshtein as the starting setter, and her proximity to Italy
has given her more access to the professional league there. She seems to
be doing well, which makes one to feel glad that she went down this
path. She took a drastic decision to change the way her life was going,
and already with two of volleyball's most prestigious titles in her hand
she could sacrifice her spot in the Soviet/Russian Team, a career that
had taken her to the top of the world. But when you're at the top,
finally you feel at ease to decide exactly where you want to go from
there on. I wouldn't be surprised if Irina's decision to leave the USSR
was one of the best choices she made. It would only be a matter of
asking her, so Irina, esli ty eto kogda-to chitaesh, pishi mnje
pozhaluista i my perepisyvaem ob etom!
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