After securing the rights to host all possible sporting events, the government is now wondering where there are going to find the athletes.
An additional academic hour of physical education classes has already been introduced in schools, but this is not enough to dominate tournaments. How Russia will find champions for the 2014 Sochi Olympics was the question that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin discussed with members of the Presidium of the Council on Physical Fitness and Sports in Krasnodar.
Most major international sports competitions in the next five years will be hosted in Russia. It is a shame to lose tournaments at home. After the bitter experience of failure in sports competitions, Russia is now making every effort to breed young champions. There is almost no hope for current athletes. The defeat of the national hockey team in Bratislava, with the score of a basketball game, is unlikely to be forgotten.
But sports authorities are lenient. Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko spoke out against condemning the defeated hockey team.
"I don't want to talk about the future of the team's coaches," he said. "I would like us finally to learn to take stock of these unsuccessful games. Vyacheslav Bykov has been the team's head coach for the past several years, and the team has been the world champion twice. It is now ranked fourth. I admit that the team did not play its best game, but we also have to understand that no team, including Russia, should expect to dominate in contemporary ice hockey."
Vyacheslav Fetisov, chairman of the Federation Council Commission for Physical Culture, took a tougher stance. According to Fetisov, that tournament was a failure for the Russian team.
"We have specialists who can lead the team at a serious level and prepare it for the Sochi Olympics," Fetisov told Izvestia. "I will not name anyone particular. Let's wait and see what conclusions the ice hockey federation and the Ministry of Sports make. Hopefully, they will provide an unbiased assessment of what happened."
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin did not dwell on the defeat. As if sensing his mood, everyone in Krasnodar, where the prime minister held the council's meeting, promised to even the score of Russia's defeats. Krasnodar Territory Governor Alexander Tkachyov gave the prime minister a tour around a construction site where a multi-function sports complex is being built with skating rinks, swimming pools and facilities for team sports. However, it currently only has a basketball court.
"This year another nine training facilities for Olympic sports will be opened in the sports complex," the governor said. "An ice rink seating 5,000 people will be finished soon. We hope to join the premier hockey league next year."
"And win the world cup?" Putin asked.
"If there are a few players from Kuban on the team," Tkachyov replied.
"I'm convinced that specialists understand that considering how difficult ice hockey is, and considering that this is sports and you cannot win all the time, fans are always looking forward to winning," the prime minister said at the council meeting. "I hope that our national teams will make us happy, and that our specialists will analyse everything in a timely manner and make adjustments in preparation for future competitions and victories. We want to involve as many people as possible in physical fitness and sports."
A third physical education lesson has already been introduced in the school curriculum. By early 2012, an educational web portal will be set up for physical education teachers in schools to get updates on the latest teaching methods and developments in sports research. The only thing left to do is to restore the system to find talented athletes and set aside the funds for creating a sports development reserve. The statistics speak for themselves. Several decades ago, the country had an efficient system to select and train talented young athletes based on almost 300 sports boarding schools. Now there are fewer then ten of them left.
Anastasia Savinykh