Will we add stars to epaulettes again? Russia goes to Rio that means ‘Baghdad is fine’
Thanks God, we won't miss the Olympiad! We won't be thrown 10 years back in sports development. Huge costs of the preparation of national teams and functionaries' big salaries are justifying themselves. And it would be great to 'catch up and overtake America'! The Russians can do it, the more we are beaten, the stronger we become! What should we do with it? Does the allowance of the Russian national team to Rio mean we can give up making amendments in the state sports system? Realnoe Vremya answers the questions.
The fish rots from the head down
It is allegory, of course, about an unsinkable person, whose first profession is motorist that he got at a professional and technical college, holds a PhD and perfectly knows Relations of Market and State Regulators in Development of Physical Culture and Sport as a former motorist. We are speaking about Vitaly Mutko.
The very Minister is better at state regulators. I have no idea what is written in his thesis, but in practice market regulators, which are to work in sport in a sound society, cannot naturalise in Russia. They even stall in an economic sphere that Mutko was charged with. I mean football. We should start from Russian sport, not football. In brief, it doesn't matter…
Vitaly Mutko is a surprisingly lucky person. Look, he chaired the Russian Football Union for the first time from 2005 to 2009. Yes, the national team could not reach the 2006 WC, but at that time the president of the Football Union just occupied the post, while the qualifiers for Germany started to fail when his predecessor was at the wheel. But the bronze medal at the Euro 2008 under Hiddink belongs to him, at least it is a bronze of Mutko and Hiddink. But, the return was tricky – a big failure at the 2016 Euro. But he got off scot-free because decent man Lyonya Slutsky took the blame. It seems to be the reason for his appointment. As for the Russian Football Union and personally the president, 'there were created all sorts of comforts for a good preparation…' etc.
'Naturalised' victory in Sochi
What about the sports administration of Russia after 2012? Sad achievements in the 2010 Vancouver is a sin of the predecessor again. But tens of awards made of the noblest metals in Sochi and, in general, the unprecedented scale and splendour of 'Hot! Cool! Yours!' are only Mutko's merit. The fact that a half of these medals were won by the naturalised Korean and American citizens doesn't matter – they prepared together with our athletes!
Famous Grigory Rodchenkov should be asked about the preparation process. He is the person who almost became Herostratus… I've written Herostratus… but why Herostratus? A Herostratus of Russian sport or Olympic national team? I don't know. The only thing I know is that Rodchenkov is a disgusting man, of course. If only 10 or at least 5, 3% of his interviews (or reports) are true, Mr Mutko and his 'partners' are to not only be dismissed but publicly whipped. This whip is to be transmitted online accompanied by Guberniev's fruity comments (Editor's Note: a Russian TV presenter and sports commentator).
Judging by his intelligence, Vitaly Mutko should have resigned several times after the story of Capello's contract, doping stuff and when his closest deputy Yury Nagorny was removed from his post. It usually happens this way in a civilised world (you're responsible for what you have tamed): if a deputy is dismissed, his or her boss resigns. But not in Russia. Everything will be different here. The Games will begin, our medals and achievements will be counted. Anyway, it will be Mutko's merit.
Option A. 'The national team of Russia that was exposed to a non-human press on the eve and during the Olympiad did what seemed to be impossible and took the first (second, third) place in the total medal table. It would be impossible without an organised work of the Ministry, federations and so on'.
Option B. 'The fact that the national team of Russia was allowed to participate in the Games is, first of all, the merit of the Ministry of Sport and personally Vitaly Mutko who organised the process of rigorous compliance with IOC's orders, WADA's requirements, etc.'
2013 Universiade in Kazan as a curtain of development of student sport in Russia
Who still remembers it? You will see, the Games will start, and an 'unofficial' medal table will appear in all newspapers, portals and Olympic reports. When we (the USSR) joined the Olympic movement, it was during the Cold War, these medals and points were to demonstrate the superiority of the socialistic regimen over rotting capitalism. This 'unofficial medal results' demonstrated the real ratio of strength in sport like about 300 gold medals won by Russian 'students' in the 2013 Universiade and reflected the real development level of student sport in Russia. In Kazan, American students won a maximum of 15-20 gold medals against almost 300 ours. Can we compare student sport in the States and in Russia?
During the fight of the two systems, we liked to take the lead everywhere: the amount of grains, production of ballistic missiles, imprisoned parasites. This leadership told or, to be more precisely, cheated about the state of affairs in this or that sphere. GDR was an example of a triumph of the Eastern Bloc in sport. Small East Germany, a socialistic country, always near (or was always close) two supergiants – the USA and the USRR. Look for the medal results of both winter and summer Games in the 70-80s. Find the results of GDR and look at its size on the map! Wow!
I was too surprised while comparing the number of medals won at the Games by two Germanies. Then I saw that no European capitalistic country is able to catch up Erfurt swimmers and Berlin ice skaters… When the national team of East Germany won against the future champions West Germany 1:0 in the 1974 WC, which took place in FRG, I finally believed in a sooner triumph of communism in the world…
Only after the fall of the Wall, during the Perestroika era, the success of GDR was made public. Terrible stories about hormonal doping, change of sex of the athletes who took steroids answered all the questions. 'Coaches-pharmacists' from East Germany spread in the world like cockroaches. Many of them settled down in China, it is another 'democratic' country where elite sport started to flourish very soon.
All these numbers in tables are a sign of the totalitarian past that we raise each time with pleasure using a collective spiritism when the Olympic flame is lit. We cannot kill our aspiration to prove that 'we are also the best in ballet'. In fact, 'Mutkos' put the next stars on their virtual epaulettes thanks to these results.
What about sport?
Nothing. Whether the national team of Russia goes to the Games or nor, it doesn't influence the development of mass sport in the country, construction of new sports facilities, increase of the number of free sports classes that we were (and did well) proud of in the Soviet Union. Many sports became unavailable for boys and girls from ordinary families many years ago. The number of these kids is growing every year, while the population is rapidly getting poor.
I remember a story that was told by a young Ak Bars player during a camp two years ago. The boy lived in Yudino (a district in Kazan). He woke up at 4 a.m. and walked on frozen rails to catch a suburban electric train in order to be in training by 6. His father, who was an ordinary worker, saw the boy's travails, saved money, bought a clapped-out Kopeika and started to drive his son to his training before his work. Once the car did not start. 'I stood, even put my skates on. I lost my train. I was crying – it was an important training before an away competition.
'I felt I was not in the team…' This story is rare now, is not it? It is a sort of retro story, a story of such an era when guys like Maltsev, Vikulov, Golikovs, Moiseyev were waving their sticks outside in their Kirovo-Chepetsk, Voskresensk and Penza… Today no Sasha Maltsev could play in elite hockey if we mean the price for a hockey kit. Just get closer to an ice rink in any city by the start of a training and look at young ice stars who come in their ' Kopeikas' and how their mummies at the wheel, who wear a mink coat, raise their hands like queens and give instructions.
I live in favourable in all terms Tatarstan. I also mean the development of mass and children sport. We have Olympic lessons, swimming pools and pitches with artificial turf are constructed at schools, and Sergey Ryzhikov starts to give football lessons. We can only guess what happens in the rest of the country by watching short videos about football pitches occupied by parkings and hockey rinks that are located where heat pipes were laid.
Women's football instead of an epilogue
An interesting man gave me a lift when I was going home from my dacha. He is from the Moscow District but bought a house here and trying to settle down. In 1990, he created a CSKA women's football club and became its president. Then no money left. As he said, he 'gave it to Giner'. Then this man went to the Perm Krai, founded a team called Victoria. But he was dismissed, but the girls and their parents tried to defend him. He is an adventurer but knows what he is dealing with.
He says he needs only five million rubles to create not only a good team but also a team full of sex symbols. 'And people will start to visit their matches. My team will become the best in Russia for 10m rubles and play in women's Champions League. I told Asgat Safarov (head of the Apparatus of the President of Tatarstan) directly that if I have my own team, there will be more people than in all matches of Dynamo teams of Kazan in total!' he told me.
To tell the truth, I was shocked by this big-head. Then I calculated the number of fans who come to see field hockey, bandy, rugby and understood: he is not lying. I'm personally against women's football, but if the girls are beautiful… Once at home, I googled this person on the Internet – Andrey Tokmakov, a real women's football coach with his full bio.
Do you know what is the problem that Tokmakov has besides the search of 5m rubles? (By the way, it is nothing if we judge by standards of some the first eleven Rubin player.) And this problem is directly connected with these five million rubles. You won't believe, but he has been trying to talk to the Minister of Sport of Tatarstan Vladimir Leonov for one year. 'I talked to Mutko, met with Koloskov, Safarov received me. But I cannot talk to your Minister. He is either 'busy', or 'at a meeting' or 'on a trip'. He might be lying that he has been waiting for a year. Mr Leonov, talk to him, please! Maybe we lack only women's football team in Kazan to be truly happy? Who knows?