With Olympic Flame Out, Russia Fumes Over Its Athletes' Showing

With Olympic Flame Out, Russia Fumes Over Its Athletes' Showing

www.nytimes.com

MOSCOW — The Olympic flame in Vancouver had barely been doused before President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia, angered over his country’s disappointing performance at the Winter Games, began calling for athletic officials’ heads.

“Let’s put up a bunch of guillotines and gallows,” said Vyacheslav Bykov, the team’s coach, responding to a reporter’s suggestion last week that the hockey team might not have seriously prepared. “We have 35 people on the hockey team. Let’s go to Red Square and dispatch with them all.”

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Wow. I know the Russians take the Olympics seriously, but that seems a bit harsh. Here's some more quotes:

“Those who are responsible for training for the Olympics must take responsibility,” Mr. Medvedev, who canceled his scheduled trip to the closing ceremony, said in Moscow on Monday. “They must have the courage to submit their resignation. And if they do not have this resolve, we will help them.”

I can't imagine training my whole life to be an Olympian, getting on the team, and then having my country's leaders and my coach express so much disgrace at my performance that they refuse to attend the closing ceremony and suggest I should have my head cut off.

Well, at least the Russian leaders don't beat around the bush about how they feel.

They are kidding about the guillotine, right?

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Wow! I would expect something like this from China, but Russia....can they even afford a guillotine to chop heads with? Perhaps, since Medvedev is their president; it is ultimately HIS failure...so he should be the first one up on the gallows.

reply to post by Aggie Man

. . . can they even afford a guillotine to chop heads with?

I'm sure they've got one saved up from the old days that they can whip out in emergency situations such as this.

This goes to show how little compassion the Russian leaders have for their own athletes. Devaluing their hard work just to promote nationalism.

It's scary to think how they would treat an enemy.

Oh well, this makes up for all the years they got away with a pretyy sophisticated doping program.

On the bright side though. At least some of the russian female athletes look female these days

missing the days of USSR dominance, huh?

Originally posted by NightGypsy
Wow. I know the Russians take the Olympics seriously, but that seems a bit harsh. Here's some more quotes:

“Those who are responsible for training for the Olympics must take responsibility,” Mr. Medvedev, who canceled his scheduled trip to the closing ceremony, said in Moscow on Monday. “They must have the courage to submit their resignation. And if they do not have this resolve, we will help them.”

I can't imagine training my whole life to be an Olympian, getting on the team, and then having my country's leaders and my coach express so much disgrace at my performance that they refuse to attend the closing ceremony and suggest I should have my head cut off.

They are not talking about the athletes who competed. "Those responsible" are the coaches and the training program organizers. And the "heads cut off" comment is actually by the hockey coach Vyacheslav Bykov, who is no less to blame than the players. He is known to be a bit impulsive and arrogant.

In all seriousness though, the Russian hockey players were terrible and didn't seem to put up much of a fight against the Canadians. It would do them good to go to Siberia to "train" for a year, or two, or ten.

Originally posted by NightGypsy
They are kidding about the guillotine, right?

No kidding - there is a guillotine on Red Square, and it sees regular use. Every day at noon the lay people gather with glee to watch the beheading of various scum and enemies of society - be it journalists, human rights defenders, disgraced athletes, democratic reformers, czars, capitalist spies, gingers, etc. It's the best entertainment in Moscow. It's called "Red Square" for a reason.


[edit on 2-3-2010 by maloy]

Maloy hit it. It's the management of the athletes Medvedev is talking about, not the athletes. The Russians are a proud people. With their history they deserve to be. The 2014 Games are in Russia in 4 years. They don't want to be embarrassed. Now is the time to "call for heads". 4 years go by quickly. The Games are more than just an event. It does something for the host country. It did here. I wish the Russians well and hope for a good accounting in 2014. Except when they face Canada of course.

Saddam had his athletes executed in pre-US Iraq.

HAHAHA Canada won the Olympics with flying colours. As much as I love Russia, we're going to be at their 2014 games to give them another beating

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
HAHAHA Canada won the Olympics with flying colours. As much as I love Russia, we're going to be at their 2014 games to give them another beating

The Russian athletes will be much better motivated this time around, with the threats of being beheaded by their coach and everything. He should seriously bring the guillotine to the games as the motivator. Alternatively the Russians could have Putin sit in the audience and watch the games - as good of a motivator as a guillotine. What does Canada have as a motivator? Where the Canadian hockey players only play to win a medal, the Russian players will be playing to stay alive. And all the training and hard labor in Siberia should toughen them up.

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


Flying colors eh? That hockey game must have gotten to your ego. Do you not see the countries at the top of the medal standings? That would be 3rd place . www.vancouver2010.com...

reply to post by USamf


Canada is first in terms of gold medals, and many countries judge that to be the key factors in standings. And as far as many people are concerned, and rightly so, hockey is the sport that really matters. Everything else in Winter Olympics might as well amount to beauty contests and cheerleading.

Originally posted by CanadianDream420
Saddam had his athletes executed in pre-US Iraq.

You believed the media hype or you witnessed it yourself. Which one?

Originally posted by maloy

Originally posted by NightGypsy
They are kidding about the guillotine, right?

No kidding - there is a guillotine on Red Square, and it sees regular use. Every day at noon the lay people gather with glee to watch the beheading of various scum and enemies of society - be it journalists, human rights defenders, disgraced athletes, democratic reformers, czars, capitalist spies, gingers, etc. It's the best entertainment in Moscow. It's called "Red Square" for a reason.


[edit on 2-3-2010 by maloy]

The best best entertainment in Moscow? really? beheading journalist, human rights defenders and "gingers" is the best entertainment in Moscow??? Are you serious or is this a joke??? If its a joke than you have a strange sense of humor. If your serious, than you my friend are truly a sad, sadistic and soulless person. I can't fathom how someone could consider this as entertainment. I'm not religious, but I will pray for you and anyone else who shares your vision because the karma of this will hunt your soul forever.

Australia had a similar problem at one stage.

Our athletes were supposed to be self trained amateur home spun heroes, but pitted against the world's very best athletes with unlimited finance, government funded training facilities, and government support we did not do well.

So the Aussie government started up the Australian Institute of Sport.

The government built world class training facilities, invested in sports medicine, research, and psychology. Offered scholarships and financial assistance for athletes, and raised the whole Olympic training game into the sort of serious professionalism usually reserved only for WARFARE.

Other nations were already doing this anyway, most notably America.

I can see the Russians getting mad about this, and doing something similar.
Raise the whole Olympic training thing to a much higher level of properly funded professionalism.

And I wish them well.

At the next Olympics, I can see there are going to be some very very serious and well supported Russian competitors.

Well, I'm not sure about the stats, but they have to have done better than us Brits!

We suck at the winter olympics, we don't like the cold and it's hard to practice skiing in 2 inches of snow!

Ah well, only a couple of years till the proper olympics. I'm sure we'll get a few medals there, we usually do in cycling and pretty much anything to do with a boat. I suppose that's the advantage of being an island though.

[Edit for spellnig]

[edit on 3-3-2010 by nik1halo]

reply to post by endlessknowledge


Yeah, I'm sure that he was being completely serious about beheading gingers for amusement purposes

Sarcasm obviously not your strong point.

not suprised at all really.

nothing like punishing your athletes for not being the best.... perhaps they should have considered the amount of time and effort the winners put into their game and compared it to their own before starting the execution.