Sasha was born in the Penza outback. In the village, which, in addition to the picturesque area, does not seem to stand out. Growing up, she became a father, Pavel Ivanovich, a forester, and with a female charm in her mother, Polina Grigoryevna, a teacher.
Regarding her tall stature - by no means a "virtue" for girlish beauty - Alexandra never complexed. Moreover, he soon came in handy: at 11, she became interested in basketball.
Champion
When the family moved from the village to neighboring Kuznetsk, a tall, fast, agile and quick-thinking girl on the playground was noticed at school competitions and invited to the city youth sports school in the basketball section, where her coach Anatoly Mikhailovich Khromchenko took care of her. Probably, albeit for children, but the most important coach in her life. Khromchenko proved that the successful sports biography of Alexandra Ovchinnikova is not an accident. When Sasha was just starting, in 1971, another of his pupils, Zinaida Kobzeva, became an honored master of sports, winning the World Cup.
And Alexandra Ovchinnikova became a champion while still a tenth grader: Penza “Spartak” (coach - Zinovy Semenovich Shvam) won the championship of the RSFSR among women's teams. Ovchinnikova scored 50-60 points for the match. And this is in women's basketball, and even with the then absence of three-point shots.
The girl could not help taking the junior team of the USSR, which won the European Championship with her. Ovchinnikova is again the most productive in the team.
Leningradka
The transition to one of the strongest teams of the USSR and the move to Leningrad became logical. Which, incidentally, negatively affected the daily life of parents in their native Penza region, where Sasha was declared a traitor. However, it was in the local “Spartak” that she became a real star of the Soviet women's basketball of the 70s. It would hardly have succeeded in the Penza club. We will not describe all the victories of the women's team and the Leningrad “Spartak” in the European Cup tournaments, but we will say that they all took place with the direct participation of Alexandra Ovchinnikova.
Alexander and Alexandra
The story of the “basketball” love of the two most popular players of the 70s deserves a separate description. The leader of the men's “Spartak” Alexander Belov stood out not only for the game on the court, but also for the external two-meter blue-eyed male beauty. In general, he did not suffer from a lack of female attention. They say that one American woman who fell in love during a USSR national team tour in the USA not only visited all the games of the national team throughout the country, but even came to the Soviet Union.
However, Alexander chose the basketball player Alexander Ovchinnikov as his life partner. Sasha could hardly be called a burning beauty, but thanks to her special charm and femininity, in terms of attractiveness, she could give odds to many. Belov confessed his love not as a true Casanova. To check Alexandra’s reciprocity, he sent a basketball friend, Mikhail Korky, and he did not directly admit his love in a letter: “I don’t subscribe. I think you guessed who is contacting you.”
The couple was considered almost the most beautiful in Leningrad. However, they were together not for long: at the age of 26, in just six months, Alexander “ate” cancer.
Alexandra Pavlovna
Ovchinnikova at the end of her career worked as a coach in Novovoronezh. Lives in Petersburg. Sometimes he goes to the site in matches of female amateur teams. He takes part in the activities of the Kondrashin and Belov Basketball Development Fund. It often happens in the native Penza region. Life goes on…
False "Movement"
Before going to the big screens of the famous film “Upward Movement”, which tells about the historic victory of the USSR men's team over the absolutely invincible American team in the 1972 Olympic Games finals, Alexander Ovchinnikov and the widow of that team’s team Vladimir Kondrashin - Eugene - held a press conference at which announced that they are suing the filmmakers.
Alexandra Pavlovna, who was performed by actress Alexandra Revenko in the film, was indignant that historical facts were seriously distorted to please the drama. So, her ex-husband Alexander Belov was depicted in the film terminally ill during the Olympics. Although really he was only five years after the match. In 1972, Belov was at the peak of his career, no one knew that in six years he would be taken away by cancer. Yes, and a sick person in the Olympic team simply would not have taken.
Ovchinnikov is outraged by the fictitious game with the yard team in the United States, which apparently took place to be defeated and because of this kick in the bar.
She was against the film adaptation of Alexander's personal life. It turned out a lot of untrue: thought-out and distorted.
She added facts of distorting reality and discrediting the heroes of the Olympics-72, Evgeny Kondrashin:
"The only truth in the film is the final match in Munich - the rest is not that."
The explanation of the “edits” that without them the film would be uninteresting, Ovchinnikov and Kondrashin are not satisfied: they believe that for the sake of commercial success this is not permissible. How do you like that? Kondrashin’s son, disabled since childhood, began to walk with joy after winning the Olympics finals, although in reality he was always confined and still confined to a wheelchair.
The filmmakers practically ignored the claims on the script, essentially satisfying only one thing: at the request of the applicants, they refused to use the names of the filmmakers. Because Alexander Ovchinnikov appears there as Ekaterina Sveshnikova.
Litigation ongoing.
In the photo below, another of the many untruths of the "Movement Up". On the right is the photo of the real Ovchinnikova, on the left is a shot from the film where Alexandra Revenko, as the friend of the basketball player Alexander Belov, is on the podium during the final match, but in reality she was not there: women's basketball only came to the Olympics in 1976. Not true, but how dramatic and dramatic! Judge for yourself how justified it is to distort history for the sake of it.
