The world-famous hockey player, eight-time champion of the USSR Valery Kharlamov, whose biography is still of interest to thousands of people, was born in Moscow in 1948, on the night of January 13-14, right in the car taking his mother to the hospital.
Childhood, family
Father Kharlamov Boris Sergeevich worked at the Kommunar plant as a locksmith. Mom Carmen Orive-Abad, a Spanish nationality who came to the USSR at the age of twelve during the Spanish Civil War , among other refugees, worked at the same enterprise as a revolver. At the time of the birth of their son, Boris and Carmen were not yet married and signed only three months later. Valery Kharlamov, whose biography is full of unexpected events, had a younger sister Tatyana.
Accompanying his wife and just-born son Valery to the hospital, Boris Sergeyevich went home with the things of the woman in labor on foot. In those distant times, police patrols often circumvented reporting areas to maintain order and peace on the city streets. The young man with a bundle in his hand, walking down the street at night, seemed suspicious to the police, and they asked him to go to the police station. Valery's father even rejoiced at this - at night in mid-January, a big frost. And the department is warm. Having informed the police on duty the good news that he had a son, Valery, having treated everyone with shag and having warmed up, Boris Sergeyevich went home.
Weak baby
The biography of hockey player Valery Kharlamov, a world famous athlete, is amazing, because he was born a weak child with a small weight. This is understandable: with scanty card nutrition, almost without vitamins, it was difficult to count on good health. At first, his family lived in a dormitory: three families lived in a large room, divided into four parts by plywood partitions. There were Spartan conditions, but they lived together and merrily.
Serious diagnosis
Due to insufficient and monotonous nutrition, not very favorable living conditions and far from mild climate, Valery Kharlamov, whose biography surprises with the number of ups and downs, was often sick. After another sore throat, which happened in March 1961 and caused complications in other organs, the doctors discovered a heart defect in him and forbade the boy from any physical activity, including any sports, attending physical education classes at school, and in the summer at a pioneer camp. Even swimming was banned.
Meet hockey
Despite the warnings of doctors that during physical activity Valery Kharlamov, whose biography is closely related to sports, may die, in the summer of 1962, his father, who was fond of playing hockey himself, took him to the summer ice rink, which had just opened on Leningradsky the prospectus. While there was just a set of boys (a year younger than Valery) in the hockey section. Valery was naturally small and frail, so no one thought that he could be a year older than the guys who were then accepted. He, like several other boys, was accepted by the second coach of CSKA Boris Pavlovich Kulagin. And when it turned out that Valery was of the wrong age, it was too late to expel him, because with his tenacity and hard work he managed to win the sympathy and trust of the coaches. Since then, hockey has firmly entered the life of Valery, and his whole other life was subject to the training regimen.
School CSKA
From the age of fourteen, Valery began to successfully engage in the hockey school of CSKA, and from the age of nineteen - in the main part of the club. Kharlamov was distinguished by perseverance, stubborn character, the will to win. He always tried to achieve high results, never complained and did not whimper. And he could burst into tears not when he was physically hurt, but when the judge first removed him from the field for two minutes, and he had to leave the minority team to fight his opponents.
Chebarkulskaya "Star"
In a fairly short period of time, Kharlamov became one of the best players in the CSKA children and youth sports school. But the head coach of CSKA Anatoly Vladimirovich Tarasov did not have high hopes for Valery. Mostly because of his small stature. Indeed, at that time all the famous world champions in hockey, including the legendary Canadian athletes, were much higher and more powerful. Because of this, the hockey player Kharlamov was sent to the second league in 1966, the Chebarkul Zvezda to the army team of the Sverdlovsk military district. But as you know, talent everywhere will strike its way. Being in Chebarkuli and playing there as a team, the first-class sportsman Kharlamov managed to score 34 goals against one another in one season.
Through the team's coach, his Moscow trainers also learned about his success. In the spring of 1967, Kulagin went to the city of Kalinin, where Kharlamov’s team played, and personally witnessed the success of the young athlete. It only remained to convince the great Tarasov to transfer the talented athlete to the main team of CSKA, as he continued to doubt the advisability of such a step. In the summer of 1967, this was possible, and the 19-year-old hockey player Valery Kharlamov was again in Moscow, from where he and his team were sent to a training base in the city of Kudeptstu.
The birth of the legendary troika
The consequence of this was that the CSKA team, for which hockey player Valery Kharlamov played, became the champion at the national championship of 1967-1968. At the same time, the famous hockey trio Mikhailov-Petrov-Kharlamov appears, in which Valery achieved the highest results. The three used force style and knew how to interact in the game so that the team achieved the highest results. Kharlamov himself in 1969, at the age of twenty, became the youngest world champion in the Soviet Union. Valery knew how to play beautifully, which won and fascinated millions of fans. Goalkeepers trembled as he stepped onto the ice, and the audience was enthusiastically excited about his game.
National team player
In 1971, Kharlamov became the top scorer, having scored 40 goals against the opponents, and in 1972 - the best player in the tournament as part of the USSR team, having scored 9 goals. In the same year, Olympic gold was won. Since that time, Valery was considered the best hockey player in all of Europe, four times becoming the champion of the USSR, three times the world champion and the European champion twice. In the fall, he as part of the team went to conquer North America.
Invincible Canadians
At this time, in September 1972, a series of matches between the national teams of the USSR and Canada began on the ice of the Montreal "Forum". The inhabitants of the North American continent did not doubt for a single moment that in all eight games their compatriots would win, and with a huge gap. And what was the surprise when in the first match the Soviet hockey players won with a crushing score of 7: 3. This was a shock for Canadian hockey players. Kharlamov was also distinguished by his unique style of play and scored two goals, later called masterpieces. After that, he was unconditionally recognized as the best player in the Soviet team. Valery became one of the key players in the USSR team. This led to the fact that after the match he was offered to go to the Canadian team, having promised a million dollars for it. Kharlamov tried to laugh it off, saying that he would not go anywhere without his troika. Canadians did not understand the joke and agreed to accept all three players, including Petrov and Mikhailov. But that was not the time - the players remained in their former team.
Recognition of Professionals
Canadian large and powerful players were especially angry and surprised Valery, since he was much smaller than their growth and more feeble. They called him “Baby” among themselves and sincerely marveled at his resourcefulness and perseverance. But they recognized his skill and talent - of all European hockey players he was the first and only one whose portrait is hanging on the stand of the Museum of Hockey Glory in Toronto.
Of course, Kharlamov was also his favorite hockey player in his native country - even fans of other teams admired him.
Fateful meeting
One evening, the guys from the hockey team, including Valery Kharlamov, went to a local restaurant to celebrate another victory. A company of young people was walking in the next room of the same restaurant - they celebrated the birthday of one of the girls. When the music began, hockey players began to invite girls from this company to dance. And Kharlamov invited a girl whose name was Irina. She mistook a young short-haired guy in a cap for a car driver, taxi driver, but still agreed to a dance. Valery did not leave Irina all evening, and upon completion he suggested taking her home by car. Irina established herself in her assumption regarding the profession of Valery, sitting down in the new Volga with the number 00-17 IMB.
At home, as befits a decent girl, she told everything to her mother Nina Vasilievna. Nina Vasilievna was skeptical and distrustful of her daughter’s new acquaintance and wanted to follow him to find out what he was like. Irina had been dating Kharlamov for several weeks when her mother persuaded her to show him at least from afar. But this time I could not meet. And when Nina Vasilievna found out who her daughter’s gentleman was, she calmed down a little - still not some driver, but a famous athlete.
Firstborn
In 1976, the son of Valery Kharlamov and Irina was born. He was called Alexander, in the future he will follow in his father's footsteps. A little later, the couple had a daughter Begonita. In the same period, Valery became the six-time world champion and two-time Olympic champion.
It is amazing that the celebrity’s parents have never met their daughter-in-law and did not see their grandson, and he was not officially introduced to Irina’s mother, despite the fact that the young people have lived together for so long. The friends of the couple intervened in this, and one day on the Eighth of March, the son of Valery Kharlamov and Irina fell by their efforts to Valery's parents for dating. And after that, Valery went to Irina's mother for an official presentation.
Crash
In the spring of the same year, Valery Kharlamov and his wife were in a car accident. The accident occurred in May. On the eve of Irina called Nina Vasilyevna and asked her to sit with the baby, while they go on a visit. But when at the appointed hour Nina Vasilievna did not wait for the call, she thought that someone else would be the nanny. And only after a while she learned from mutual friends that Valery and Irina had crashed in a car. They drove home late at night, and Valery lost control of the car. The car was smashed to smithereens and could not be restored. Valery received numerous fractures of his legs, ribs and concussion. The wife of Valery Kharlamov also received injuries. But it helped that the accident witnesses immediately called an ambulance and the victims were immediately taken to the hospital.
For two months, the athlete lay in the hospital before taking the first independent step after an illness. The children of Valery Kharlamov at that moment were under the supervision of his mother. The teammates delivered a simulator to the ward so that he could train and maintain muscle tone. Doctors gave disappointing predictions and doubted whether he would be able to walk normally, not to mention the game. That was in August. In the late autumn of that year, Kharlamov again went on the ice. And six months after the accident began to fully train.
Spite all the forecasts
There were many skeptics about whether Kharlamov could become a player of the same level. But, despite the disappointing forecasts of doctors and their recommendations to forget about hockey, Valery did the impossible - he already showed his high class in the first game with Wings of the Soviets. And in 1977, as part of the CSKA team, the hockey player Kharlamov became the seven-time champion of the USSR and still remained one of the top scorers. Throughout his fifteen-year sports career, he played in 438 matches for CSKA and scored 293 goals. 123 matches were played for the USSR national team at the World Championships and the Olympic Games, and 89 goals were scored.
At that time, there were rumors about the strict nature of the team coach Anatoly Tarasov and about iron discipline in the training of the famous club. But the new coach Viktor Tikhonov, who came to the club in 1977, dispelled them, saying that there was no discipline there, even the most elementary in terms of the requirements adopted in sports. Just all conscientiously and responsibly relate to their duties and training. And if necessary, were able to show heroism.
Untimely loss
On August 26, 1981, on the Leningrad highway, Valery Kharlamov died. The accident occurred when his wife Irina was driving a car. She also died a few hours later in the hospital. The death of Valery Kharlamov was a tragedy for millions of his fans. Together with family and friends mourned millions of admirers of his talent around the world. And the children of Valery Kharlamov from that moment were brought up by his parents. Until now, they are actively invited to various programs - to talk about their legendary father.
The funeral of Valery Kharlamov took place a few days later at the Kuntsevo cemetery. Ten years later, a monument was erected at the place of his death.
The star legend of domestic and world hockey is Valery Kharlamov. A film about his life, successes and fame was released in 2013. Many sports facilities are named after him.