Interview by Vladimir Nesterov. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
About a year has passed since the Sochi Olympic Games. Vyacheslav Fetisov, a senator, first deputy head of the Federation Council committee for social policy, twice Olympic champion, a world ice hockey legend, has expressed his outlook on the Olympic Games, the development of sport in Russia and security in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza.
- It is February 2015 now. It is hard to believe that a whole year has passed since the start of the Winter Olympics. I think that a year is enough to make a roundup. How were the expectations of organizers of the Olympic Games satisfied? To what extent can we say that a festival of sports succeeded, no longer inebriated by the Olympics?
- The results of Olympic Games are rounded up throughout a whole life. Few countries are lucky to host Games of such a scale. I think that one of the main conditions to get the right to hold the Games is the so-called heritage, what you offer the IOC, in terms of what will be happening after the Olympics. The most important thing is to keep the Olympic spirit alive, so that the objects, the tincture and the atmosphere, would stay. It seems to me that we have had a very interesting experience here. I was preparing the project together with the bidding committee, we discussed a lot with the president of our country. Speaking at the IOC session in Guatemala after President Vladimir Putin, I addressed IOC members as friends. In two years of preparations of the project, we became friends, and they had to trust me. They had to believe that we would host the most successful Winter Games in history, we know how to welcome guests, we have a colossal history, we have great winter athletes, and if it happens, I will have “the third golden Olympic medal.” Now I am somewhat three times Olympic champion.
The atmosphere created during the Games (I have been to many Olympic Games in different hypostases) is what we need to cherish, develop today. I saw the amazement and pride of boys and girls, volunteers who arrived from all over the country to take part in organizing the Games. It created a special tone, a special atmosphere. They understood that they were representing a new country, a new Russia – a friendly, speaking many languages of the world, willing to show our lifestyle, modern, with its own sentiments, peculiarities. The most important thing is the hospitality absorbed by both the athletes and the fans who arrived for the Olympics. It is a great success for us.
- The Olympic Games were brilliant for our national team: 33 medals, 13 gold, 11 silver and 9 bronze. Bobsleigh riders, ice skaters, skiers distinguished themselves. Ice hockey skaters to a lesser degree. Tell me, why? Because we had such stars as Ovechkin, Malkin, Datsyuk, Kovalchuk, Radulov, Semin, but with such an abundance of stars we were ranked fifth. What prospects does our ice hockey have? There are talented guys, they play. It happens that something goes wrong during the competition. No team is safe from it. Can we believe that ice hockey, the sport of real men, would reach the same heights as when you were playing hockey?
- Maybe it does not refer to the good heritage of the Sochi Olympics. Our guys shamed themselves a bit, to say the least. Although we were all trying to support our guys publicly, there were not that many preconditions in general. Ice hockey in the world today is at a very high level, and we cannot win all Olympics participated in by professionals, the best hockey players of the world. There are many reasons for that. We need to be inside the team to make a clear evaluation. On the other hand, we need to play for the team, not for ourselves.
There is a malfunction in the system here. We need to pay attention to children’s hockey, juniors, training of coaches who will work according to modern methods, it means creating our own style. We had the Soviet game style, there is not one today. We do not have Russian hockey, we play in a hybrid style: a combination of North American and European ice hockey. Many teams (Canadians, Swedes, Finns) have their own style, national traits of ice hockey, we do not.
Moreover, there are very many prerequisites for improvement of the situation. I think we have outrun all countries in terms of investment in hockey. We built 30 roofed skating arenas. There were only 30 in the Soviet Union. We formed the Continental Hockey League, a junior league, an All-Russian Hockey League, a Night Hockey League, where veterans and amateurs play. We built stadiums. We have a hockey channel.
Now we need professionals, the people who work on a modern level. We have them. Many guys have played in the best league, the North American, where all modern methods have been collected, and the business element, and the sports element.
We have something to orient towards with account of our national and historical peculiarities. By the way, it seems to me that ice hockey in the Caucasus should develop and establish. The Caucasian temperament can give us an advantage. We should develop hockey, not only wrestling, in our Caucasian republics. This type of sport, it is very philosophical, it unites people, it provides an opportunity to look at everything differently. Boys in Chechnya, Dagestan, Alania, Sochi should have an opportunity to play hockey. I think that it would be favourited and prioritized in the Caucasus.
- You said that you found friends throughout the years of preparations for the Sochi Olympics. What was their assessment of the Olympics?
- They were all amazed. They were saying: “Hey, we could imagine, but what we have actually seen is indeed almost unreal, creating a modern infrastructure in such little time.” Everyone noted the atmosphere created at all Olympic facilities in the city during the Games. They were certainly sorry for IOC members who refused to come due to political reasons. So, the evaluation was unilateral. Moreover, they are people who knows what they say, they are responsible for their words, and they were saying that it was the success of Russia, the success of Sochi, the Caucasus, the success of people who showed the new Russia, indisputably.
- What were the South Korean athletes, the South Korean organizers saying, considering that they will host the 2018 Winter Games? Would they use the experience?
- The goal is not a simple one for the South Koreans. They will certainly study the experience. But they have their own tone, they have their own national peculiarities. We will see whether they manage to create such an atmosphere of hospitability. We need to wait for 2018 and compare afterwards. In any case, the Sochi Olympics were new standards of compactness, of organizing, of everything both during the competitions and beyond, the award ceremonies when it was turned into a festival. Awards were presented with the attendance of thousands of people, not just handed on the slope, it was all followed by a concert. We managed to create a feeling of festival among the athletes and fans.
- February 7 in Russia this year is marked as a festival of winter sports for the first time. Have winter sports become so popular after the Olympics in Sochi?
- The winter has always been interesting in our country. Skiing and biathlons are some of the most watchable sports. Ice hockey, naturally. Not to mention figure skating. We need to congratulate the coaches, first of all, who prepared bright, original figure skaters after the failures of the previous Olympics, who regained respect for Russian figure skating and, most importantly, showed results. It is the only type of sport that lived up to expectations and gave an opportunity to experience pride and joy from successes. But to keep the interest alive, we need to create infrastructure. No wonder philosophers say “you build, they will come.” Build skating arenas, stadiums, ski slopes, and children will go there, joy will come, the health of the nation will come, results will come. It is absolutely obvious.
The goal of the government at all levels today is to inspire interest in creation, involvement, hosting. A serious program for creation of infrastructure is needed today, though the situation is very complicated economically, but we say today that sport has become a state policy.
I worked on it for a long time. We managed to bring sports to a level of a sector. We understand that the only alternative to the challenges of the street today, i.e. drug addition, child crime, alcoholism, is sport.
Another problem of the 21st century is that young people and children live in a virtual world more than they walk on earth. School sports may become a boost that would help children get fun from communication between each other, from the ability to set common goals and move towards them, representing school teams. It takes a lot of work. Young people will not play football on a potato field. This means that we need to create modern conditions.
To be continued
