“Here We Found Real America”: The 1987 USA/USSR Goodwill Gymnastics Tour in Cedar City, Utah

On Wednesday, April 29, 1987, over five thousand people packed into the Centrum Arena on the campus of Southern Utah State College (SUSC, today called Southern Utah University) to witness an exhibition by elite gymnasts from the United States and the Soviet Union. More than two dozen athletes from the two nations showed off their gymnastic skills in the unscored performance. The five thousand spectators represented a sizable chunk of the population of Cedar City, Utah, which boasted a population of about fourteen thousand in 1987.1 For anyone who was unable to secure a ticket to the show, ESPN recorded the event and broadcast it to the nation a few weeks later.2Although “Citizen Exchange” programs between the USSR and the USA were common enough occurrences in 1987, a visit by the accomplished Soviet gymnasts to a windy, western, rural town in southern Utah raised a few eyebrows. After dominating the McDonald's USA-USSR Challenge in Denver, Colorado, the Soviet delegation embarked on a weeklong tour of the American West, staging exhibitions in Seattle, San Francisco, and Cedar City. As newspaper reporter Lee Warnick wrote in the Salt Lake City–based Deseret News, “Denver, San Francisco, Seattle and Cedar City? Say again?”3Warnick's column went on to ask—but not answer—the key question of “how an exhibition like this ended up in . . . Cedar City,” and it is a question worth investigating. In the wake of the hugely popular 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, a strong support for amateur athletics emerged among the people of the state of Utah. In 1986, a fledgling organization called the Utah Summer Games, based in Cedar City and affiliated with Southern Utah State College, sought to capitalize on the Olympic excitement and foster amateur athletics at both a grassroots level and at the highest reaches of international competition. The visit of the Soviet gymnasts in 1987 was but one of several international sporting events that the Utah Summer Games brought to Cedar City in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The story of how a small Utah town of less than fifteen thousand people managed to stage an international sporting event between Cold War adversaries is a story of community support, volunteerism, and a broad optimism in 1987 concerning the town's unrealized potential for growth and progress. In the waning years of the Cold War, the Cedar City exhibition featured an idealized form of western Americana to the Soviet visitors and fostered a successful diplomatic encounter between the two nations.After World War II, the tensions of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as their allies, spilled into many theaters of war worldwide. International sporting competitions offered especially fertile ground for comparisons between the merits and drawbacks of capitalism and communism. As historians Toby Rider and Kevin Witherspoon have noted, the American and Soviet “superpowers” struggled to fight “an ideological war through the mobilization of culture.”4 Of course, this mobilization was especially apparent in the arena of athletic competition.Besides the obvious head-to-head competitions in the international sphere, the Cold War impacted sport in the United States in a variety of ways. The ramifications of the Cold War on sporting life in America were vast and too widespread to tabulate here. Briefly, though, the Cold War served as a catalyst for American discussions on women's opportunities in sport, government funding of sport, and the use of performance-enhancing drugs (among other things).5 In addition to acting as another area in which to pursue competitive advantage and demonstrate systemic superiority, Cold War sports also offered the chance for diplomatic rapprochement between the two nations and their allies. Sport was hoped to be “a force for peace and friendship,” and organizers thought that face-to-face athletic competitions might break down ideological barriers.6 These high expectations generated immense pressure on athletes and coaches, who were expected to perform on behalf of country and credo, added to the already tense nature of world-champion-caliber competition. Patriotically, though, athletes from both East and West participated in several international competitions and exhibitions throughout the Cold War. For gymnastics, this “sports diplomacy” began in the 1970s.7According to scholar and gymnast Georgia Cervin, most of these diplomatically oriented gymnastics tours featured Soviet-bloc athletes visiting western nations, with fewer instances of Americans traveling east. Although Cervin cites several possible factors for this discrepancy, the most persuasive is the dominant nature of the Soviet-bloc gymnasts. American gymnasts were mostly unknown behind the Iron Curtain. On the other hand, the successful Soviet gymnasts boasted world and Olympic champions. In this sense, the Soviets appear to have had more to gain in sending their world-class athletes abroad. The gymnasts’ popularity promised to engender goodwill and positive reactions. Conversely, members of the host country (usually Americans) recognized these tours as important opportunities to offer their own cultural showcases and, ideally, to highlight examples of the visitors embracing the hosts’ culture and values. Thus, both sides in an exchange looked to gain from athletic “citizen diplomacy.”8 In gymnastics, these athletic tours were usually exhibitions rather than competitions. As public-facing spectacles, they were designed to feature both the athletic abilities and the personalities of the athletes.9With the emergence of the Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut in the 1972 Munich Olympics and, even more famously, the Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci in the 1976 Montreal Olympics, American enthusiasm for gymnastics soared. After Comăneci scored seven “tens” and won three gold medals in those games, Sports Illustrated featured the fourteen-year-old gymnast on its cover on August 2, 1976. The cover story indicated that American participation in gymnastics had climbed “fivefold or more in the last few years,” tracing that excitement to Korbut's popularity and Comăneci's emergence.10 Both Korbut and Comăneci visited the United States multiple times in the 1970s as part of gymnastics tours. The presence of the Olympic champions played a critical role in these cultural exchanges. Cervin, riffing on Nixon, China, and ping-pong, called these exchanges “flic-flac diplomacy,” as the two Cold War antagonists collaborated and competed in the sporting arena.11 Although athletic exhibitions and exchanges between the United States and Soviet-bloc countries continued into the 1980s, this next phase of American-Soviet sporting relations was deeply marked by the Olympic boycotts of 1980 and 1984.As a means of protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, US President Jimmy Carter proposed the Olympic boycott in January 1980, and both chambers of the US Congress resolutely supported the proposal. As Carter told a group of American athletes in March 1980, “The American people are convinced that we should not go to the Summer Olympics” and “the decision has been made.”12 Four years later, on May 8, 1984, despite abundant negotiations between the organizers of the Los Angeles Olympics, the Soviet Union, and the United States diplomatic service, the Soviet Union announced that Soviet participation in the 1984 Olympic was the Soviets they for and that that the decision was by the to for the the US in Cervin that the of American gymnasts in in 1980 had on the sport and its Soviet and athletes usually these in 1984, the of Soviet and athletes from Los Angeles offered a chance for American gymnasts to the it they by Americans and of gymnastic performance. especially with American or members of the of of an in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the of a sizable of Cedar City in Although about as a Olympic and was by that the between and athletic In the at the a role for to offer and the Olympic excitement in America the successful 1984 As who to their they in to of Olympic enthusiasm and gymnastic the for Cedar 1987 by the of the 1984 Olympic in Los Angeles, in of and the Utah Summer Games As a of the Congress of State Games, which was in the Utah Summer Games were to the United States Olympic Utah amateur the Utah Summer Games hoped to amateur Utah athletes for Olympic by a competitive to Olympic this to foster grassroots amateur athletics the for elite international amateur in the Utah Summer Games its competitive in Cedar City, the the role of the in 1986, the of as of the Utah Summer Games and the later, in January 1987, was as in offer was to to the and for the Utah Summer and the to in the Cedar City from the the Utah Summer Games support from important in Cedar City. The Southern Utah State College offered as and and of and to the one reporter to Cedar “the City of In addition to the of Los Angeles 1984 that to the Summer Games, and the Utah Summer Games looked to the Los Angeles Olympic for more than sporting and that the Utah Summer Games a to the and the and international in and had to in Utah by the 1980s, southern Utah to one in the to and support The Utah Summer Games hoped to As it in 1986, the Summer Games Southern Utah State College more to that Iron a for and other In addition to the that the Summer Games a variety of opportunities throughout the that Cedar City a for and international sporting on a to the the and the Summer Games and international up the Utah from Salt Lake City to Cedar City for an exhibition on from this visit by in and the Utah Summer Games their on and staging elite amateur competitions. On 1986, the United States off the in an in the Centrum Arena on the for the to to in Utah was small for and the Summer The United States had won in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, to the and their had won the called it “a to a event in Cedar City and international events the of Cedar City managed to the the of the visit by the and US more than a in that Cedar City an international like . . . and The Los the of Cedar City had to up the event was to this for community support and at the that the United States Olympic was sending to Cedar for and international Utah Summer Games both to the Centrum with an from the United States and the of both five thousand spectators the Centrum to to the to a in that the had with the Olympic and other of United States and to that both had the visit and that the United States to to Cedar City more than over three later, on 1987, the Utah Summer Games, Cedar City, and an elite international amateur the from the United States and to Cedar City was not one of the for the one of the unable to USA and Cedar City As with the women's a few a arena the elite US at the to the 1984 Olympic World and World in an of from the and the of and of the and the Centrum was to not After the United States a in games, for the had in southern Utah, that the has been to and down the Cedar City had on the international In an the of the the people of Cedar City for a few in the a world-class sporting event of Olympic to Utah Cedar In 1987, the people of Cedar City might have few the international event in the the Soviet and US of 1987, was two of the the and Cedar City announced on 1986, that the Soviet Union was sending a group of and gymnasts for an exhibition in Cedar City the United States than three weeks from the successful and international between and the United announced this that Cedar City had the to host despite from other western American that the of the with the and to offer had the decision at the United States Cedar of for competitive gymnastics had not the US even was in the state of Utah in late that this be As in of the to the States it how the US a small of fourteen thousand people to host an elite international gymnastics In a that of the for a called the United States an cultural to the gymnastics of the was more diplomatic that in for the Games, and Lee Warnick it most called it and Cedar City was announced as a on the that of the in the United had to the but Cedar City had promised to western into the had managed the small town of Cedar City was to a USSR and USA the years of the Cold noted, 1980s Utah was in and Cold War tensions between the United States and Soviet Union in of war and the of in the As in Utah and went in also that Cold War between and and through the of the that brought Soviet to Utah, or to on behalf of the of of the 1980s, the Soviet Union were the exhibition for southern Utah, for Cedar City, cultural to volunteerism, an on western and and an to the United States the Utah Summer Games, Southern Utah State College, and the people of Cedar City had to stage a of international The for the cultural was the the that the Soviets were a and a to as with a for the that had that the be “the event to in or not be the to be an of the American West, southern Utah, Cedar City, and In an to “an of and in a for world Cedar City had a at As the Soviet delegation for a chance to visit and a town in the of the promised to the Soviets “a of After dominating the McDonald's USA-USSR a scored event in Denver, Colorado, on April 1987, the Soviet gymnasts embarked on the to perform unscored exhibitions American gymnasts in three western United States Seattle, and Cedar City, Utah. Cedar City was the and had the most the in town for the part of three The was April 1987, a down at the Cedar City the coaches, and from both Cedar City showed up to the visitors to and the of both As Cedar City recorded in the group were of a country and and an as at the from and from the were the to the and with and peace and After the the athletes and their were to their with the and they were off to to among the southern Utah The its in to the visitors the of the to Cedar City that the were to a at the Iron State called State by the State the and American The also the gymnastics with a variety of that the nature of the a a a of a small of a American from Cedar a a from the Utah and a to These by the Cedar City of in with represented the to about the area for the As with many of the other of the the on members of the of and to these April the gymnasts the in the Centrum on campus the a the from Iron State and down on and its the Centrum on weeks had promised that this be “the in or not the it was a one participated in the which was to a of the to Soviet and American The featured and high Americans in and The a women's was the from the were the and the were the the the gymnastics and the were to the and for the of and The on the athletic of Southern Utah State College, featured and that the and and were among the Americans offered and as well as on and and from on April the began on the in the that among The Sports featured the Cedar City event in the story of its May 1987, the wrote that the was as a but that its popularity with the athletes it to a to the gymnastics As in southern Utah, the Soviets they most to in the United several of the gymnasts in President that the had ended up more than we had to the for the thousand and world-class gymnasts in the was as a later, in the with the Soviet gymnasts in with the and that is for with the Cold “citizen diplomacy,” Cedar City and the were their to their own and After the as in Cedar City, a packed into the Centrum for a by country a of the of to the for the the United States to the to stage the 1987 had Cedar western The promised and the and of the American Cedar City, Utah, is in the American West, but in its western the 1987 multiple and in the The a from western with for or The that in western as early as the and began to in to to a of the American West their by and and In this gymnasts from both the United States and the Soviet Union to an idealized of the West, and Cedar City was to and in 1987 the not an western but we have the to be one for three for life with American and life was American at the was and for Cedar the Cedar of the Southern an of the American West is the visitors to and the Utah Summer Games, and the people of Cedar City is more than one of to a On the other hand, the nature offered a of as Southern and the of this and the a variety of people and of its this on western Americana was a key for both American and Soviet gymnasts in addition to the western and Cedar City and its for the 1987 on the of that Cedar in to on the its in 1986, the Utah Summer Games on from the in 1987, was the of the Utah Summer Games and in the In March 1987, the Utah of in Cedar and “The of Cedar City is up in went on to that the of Utah, had Cedar “The City of was this of that the of the and the in three of the visit by the American and Soviet gymnastics April 29, 1987, was less the exhibition was for that The Soviet gymnasts in Cedar City, by the The coaches, and Soviet the visiting and up on and years later, in US gymnast how Soviet the Soviet gymnasts of Utah and US also that were in the Soviet and they were Soviet The to their it to the Deseret News, the Soviet was too and to of their as the gymnasts through and the featured another of western and but the event had Cedar City recorded in that a into the event at in the Centrum on the campus of Southern Utah State As an unscored the pressure of the was less than had both in a few the Deseret gymnastics this was In of a area and with ESPN gymnasts from the two nations packed over events into the the from the Salt Lake City and the Although go on to in the Olympics in for Soviet at the Cedar City the next Olympic competitions. Both the Soviet and women's and the Soviet Union gymnasts The United States a in Olympic and by in the ESPN as of their abilities to the Cedar City The exhibition with two a recorded by and for the American with the The next April the gymnasts Cedar City for the other two of their on May and Seattle on May of the gymnasts and their support marked the of the and of the sporting event in the of southern Utah. of the diplomatic were of the “the events as US gymnast told the that sport, and through tours like this we break down . . . between the two US gymnast a of the the and the the of Cold War “flic-flac diplomacy” was to goodwill by the visiting world-class athletes the to offer their own cultural the 1987 and in Cedar City was a Both American and Soviet gymnastics offered high for the and of the American that US had not been in to Cedar City, into . . . has the of the by The of the Soviet told a reporter that the Soviets have more in Cedar City less in an with the US wrote to to for a that the were and the Americans have been was in as the US of wrote to to for the successful on the that was to the USA athletes and USSR athletes on the and Cedar City the to these The Iron of the called the Soviet visit to Cedar City the story of the and the of the Soviet Union and the United States a in the the of Cedar City and the Utah and especially for their few weeks later, as the Utah Summer Games in Cedar City for the a sports and gymnast in the 1984 Olympics, had the exhibition as a for told the Summer Games that their of the gymnasts more for than they was by the Soviet Cedar City wrote to the of the to at “the and over that the had been by though, to the and community the visit as a positive of the most was the that the Soviet delegation to to Cedar City as part of a gymnastics based on their in As in the visit in City the of American and that many of the gymnastics had Cedar 1987 of the gymnastics exhibitions in the In Soviet delegation had the most of the 1987 through the gymnastics told the in the we the and in 1987, the Utah Summer Games continued to to Cedar City. In August the United States to Cedar City for its the The a in Cedar City, that it encounter in the Olympic and in of a of USSR and USA gymnasts to Cedar City. this it was the of their to visit and a those other offered to host both for the of the Soviet and the an even than in The gymnastics in on May 2, and on the to Cedar City. As the athletes were and with and staging a for to World in on Wednesday, May The of May featured a and by Lee the gymnastics exhibition on by the in gymnastics in the Olympics and ticket in the Centrum from support and especially in the gymnastics was less community excitement about staging and a in a event two years the the struggled to and as to that of the was on not to the the event ended up over a for Utah Summer Games, and Cedar Although the Utah Summer Games to to athletic competitions to Cedar City, the the and the of the 1987 it had that the world had Southern Utah State College had Southern Utah and the Soviet Union had the announced that the world several weeks on campus in late of and a In announced from the Utah Summer Games, January the Utah Summer Games a international On January the Utah Summer Games a that had been in Cedar City for March of the fledgling Utah Summer Games in 1986, a of international athletics with grassroots amateur competitions that the Summer Games to raised for the at the and growth is to Cedar City has and the of Southern Utah State College are to today the campus of Southern Utah In 1987, President wrote that the had and than in and as the Utah Summer Games the to stage the events of that in Utah that the of the USA with and and the two of 1987 and had or not the Summer Games and the international athletic events the that had it is that the international community had of Cedar City and the state of Utah. As the Utah these sporting events on an international had “a with the international Olympic The state of Olympic with both United States and International Olympic important in the early as Salt Lake City to host the Olympic visit of the Soviet and USA gymnasts to Cedar City in 1987 marked a high for Cedar on a and even international small town had elite athletes from the two the Cold War and the the obvious of this the USA and Soviet gymnasts to Utah with to host the Olympic Games in the 1980s and In Utah a group of Utah to a to secure the Olympic Games for Salt Lake later, the Utah Summer Games began in Cedar City. its the Utah Summer Games a with the United States Olympic As a of the Congress of State Games, the Summer Games, with its grassroots athletics was affiliated with the United States Olympic In and 1987, US Olympic the US and at The for the Utah Summer Games featured from the of the United States Olympic and from of the Congress of State from to an organization called The Olympics For Utah, indicated the strong support from the Utah Summer Games for the Salt Lake City Olympic as the to the use of for sports Cedar City played a role in the state of Utah as a host for the athletic and of it was the state Salt Lake City, that host the world in Salt Lake City the US Olympic in the to the Olympics, and the US the in part of the successful in Cedar City the In Salt Lake City was to in its to secure the Olympic Four years later, in Salt Lake City the to host the games, a that the of amateur athletics in the to competitive amateur athletics at the highest international the 1980s and a to the Utah Summer Games, and the people of Cedar City for their in and international sporting The 1987 and, to a the and the gymnastics exhibitions successful diplomatic between Cold War on the American excitement for and its culture of volunteerism, the Utah Summer Games, Southern Utah State College, and Cedar City on a for the the Iron was in the 1987 it was a worth

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