How should Russian sport be developed?

Alexei Vlasov. Exclusively for VK

The unsuccessful performance of the Russian Olympic national team in London creates not only unavoidable questions for heads of certain federations, for example, the fencing and swimming federations, but also more global questions devoted to the system of training of Russian athletes  which doesn’t correlate with the 21st century’s reality. The point is not in a number of gathered medals, but in some deep strain of our athletes’ performances almost in all kinds of the Olympic program, starting with the strange situation with injured weight-lifters and ending with the apparent failure in shooting.

An author of Sport Express observation was right to say that Russian sporting bureaucrats couldn’t define a key issue, i.e. the model of sport’s development: Chinese or American. In the first case we would revive the system of a total governmental control over training of the most talented athletes. Heads of federations should be not high-powered functionaries who are able to attract oligarchs’ money, but reliable managers who would be responsible for failures in a full-scale.

Our clumsy bureaucratic system is not capable of doing it. In addition, in the context of the total control under spending allocated resources there would be few enthusiasts who would be able to bare this heavy burden without the  opportunity to distribute the federation’s money illegally. But the American model is not suitable for us as well because we lack the most important element of this model – student sport. It is the greatest resource for development of swimming, track-and-field athletics, i.e. the most medalful kinds of the Olympic program. To shift to the principles of the American sport, we should live in a different country.

However, there are positive examples. First of all, the successes of our wrestlers, boxers and judoists. Here we can see the resource potential which is still unexhausted in the Russian sport suffering from constant reforms. It relies on traditions, national wrestling schools which for many years had been forming in republics of the North Caucasus and which still produce unique talents. It is confirmed by three golden medals in judo.

Of course in the 21st century it is difficult to solve wide-scale problems of Olympic Games and World championships relying only on schools and traditions. Therefore, invitation of the outstanding Italian coach to the Russian judo team is a step towards faceting of Caucasian diamonds.

For sure the recipe is not universal. It appears in such kinds of sport as swimming and rowing the notion of the “Russian school” is hopelessly forgotten. It would take much time to restore the traditions. But support of not only prominent athletes, but also children and teenagers in such regions of the North Caucasus as Chechnya, Dagestan, North Ossetia shows that everything is not lost in our sport. We should understand the apparent truth – without mass sport, without the opportunity of choice from young talents there would be no Olympic champions.