Since a certain time until 1991 in the end of each year the Federation of Sports Journalists of the USSR held an inquest among its members to name top ten athletes of the year of the USSR. Here is a list of them.
Evelyn Mertin, Presenting Heroes. Athletes as Role Models for the New Soviet Person. In: The International Journal of the History of Sport 26(3)(Regional Issue: Europe, Regional Academic Editor: Thierry Terret), 2009, pp. 469–483.