Doping at the Olympics

a reply to: JAGStorm

UPDATE:

Not only did they let her compete, but she just got a standing ovation in Beijing before she even started her routine!! Awarded her top score so far, even though she almost fell...and then gave her another standing ovation at the end!!!

Pardon me, but I'm going to go vomit now!

The values of the entire World are F'd!

Unbelievable!

Meeting of the Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sport

April 26, 2022 17:50

President of Russia Vladimir Putin:

Good afternoon, colleagues.

I have just met with our athletes – members of the Olympic and Paralympic teams of Russia – and would like to note a few points before getting down to today’s agenda.

The first point. The winners and medallists of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games are certainly outstanding athletes who won a befitting number of medals. However, today we are not at a gala event but basically at a production meeting, and we need to objectively evaluate everything that we are doing.

In this respect, I would like to note that our final team rating is still below what was planned in the Strategy for the Development of Sport, and I would certainly like the Minister of Sport to report on this.

The second point. In the current conditions, in the face of pressure on Russia and its citizens, it is pivotal to maintain our athletes’ competitiveness. In addressing our national teams, I said that we intend to carry out everything we planned in sports.

As for the projects cancelled in Russia by international sports management associations – well, let God sort them out, we must replace these cancelled competitions with our own new formats. We can do this pretty quickly: organise open multi-stage sports tournaments that will be attractive in all respects, and ensure the participation of foreign athletes, clubs and teams in these tournaments.

I would like to ask the Government to immediately start compiling a list of competitions and determine the amounts and sources of funding for both the planned projects and for new initiatives.

Now back to the Council's agenda. We continue to review matters related to mass sport. Last time, we discussed children's and youth sports. Today we will discuss ways to involve greater numbers of economically active people in regular physical fitness and sport.

Clearly, special approaches are needed since we are talking about people with families whose daily routines include their jobs and household duties. In particular, we need to think about promoting modern corporate fitness. Much has already been accomplished in this area. We should build on the experience of our major companies and state corporations such as Gazprom, Russian Railways, Rosatom, LUKOIL and Rostec, which initiated the revival of the Trudovye Reservy sports society in 2018.

I welcome the creation of the Association for Promoting Corporate Fitness. I believe the next step should include a joint programme of action for businesses and government authorities at all levels, as well as public associations, including our renowned sports societies like Dynamo, Spartak and CSKA. I hope that close cooperation and work for a greater common cause will help overcome a number of daunting challenges, for example, in expanding the system for organising and holding mass fitness and sports events.

Clearly, the competitions – national, regional and municipal – should be mostly integrated and include multiple stages, be focused on people of all ages and be accessible and appealing to people of all fitness levels.

The public must be properly motivated. To do so, it is imperative to expand the coverage and promotion of mass sport in the state media, to enthusiastically promote the National GTO sports programme through outreach awareness drives and various kinds of incentives for participants, and, of course, to create proper conditions for physical activities in the form of modern and well-equipped sports infrastructure. A Paralympic athlete just spoke about this and put it absolutely correctly. It is important to create a conveniently located infrastructure that is easy on the wallet. This is a multifaceted and big issue that needs to be reviewed by the Council separately. I propose holding our next meeting on this.

We also expect heads of Russian regions and municipalities to be proactive in developing fitness and sports and ensuring its accessibility. It is especially important to create and launch information systems to help people navigate sports, health and fitness services, find out where and which sport they can do on their own or with their families, and what sports events are planned in their regions. I know that such systems are already in operation in a number of regions. I would also like to remind you of the instruction to create such a resource at the federal level. I would ask you to report on the progress today.

In conclusion, I would like to highlight one more point, which is no less important. It was previously decided that by 2024, the constituent entities of the Federation are to allocate at least 2 percent of their regional budgets for sports. I suggest thinking about increasing spending on sports every year from 2025 on and doing it in such a way as to avoid gaps in the financing of sports, the quality and availability of sports infrastructure, depending on each region’s financial standing – we know that they are different.

Again, this is of the essence, among other things, to achieve the goal of getting 55 percent of Russians involved in regular exercise by 2024, and 70 percent by 2030, and this can only be done if all regions of our country join the effort.

I’d like to note that in 2021, 49.4 percent of citizens were reported to regularly do sports. This is a good result, but still far from ideal. Further trends directly depend on the effective implementation of the decisions we make, on how well and timely the instructions are fulfilled, including the instructions issued following the Council for Sport meetings. I ask you to prepare a report on the implementation of these instructions.

Let's get to work.

en.kremlin.ru...

Meeting with winners and medallists of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and members of the Russian Paralympic team

April 26, 2022 15:50

President of Russia Vladimir Putin:

Friends, good afternoon,

I am delighted to see you all in this Kremlin hall.

I would like to begin by thanking you all – thank you for your hard work, for your achievements and your strong determination to win. Your victories in sports are certainly an inspiring, maybe even a super-inspiring example for many, for millions of people. It is highly significant for our entire society, for our youth, who are learning to be as resilient and dedicated as you are, as determined to persevere towards their goal and achieve the highest success, the highest results, to be the best.
.................................
I would like to especially emphasise our Paralympic athletes. You trained hard to show your best at the Beijing Paralympics, and to prove in an honest and open competition that you are the best and deserve this status. Of course, the way things played out does not stand up to any criticism. The fact that athletes from Russia and Belarus were prevented from competing was not only an outright violation of the fundamental principles of sport, but an act of open and, dare I say, cynical trampling of fundamental human rights.

All this is set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly back in 1948. This is not a question of the political, legal, or international status of the country the athletes represent. It is about the people, the athletes themselves. Their rights have been trampled upon. Our athletes suffered from discrimination on purely political grounds, based on their citizenship and ethnic background. This is something unimaginable, since it is completely at odds with the principles of the Olympic and Paralympic movements.

In fact, the “recommendations” took on the form of actual sanctions. Unfortunately, all this demonstrates the continuing drive towards subjecting sports to a business agenda, considering the growing dependence on sponsors – the money bags. This applies to both the Paralympic and the Olympic movements. Unfortunately, it goes without saying that dependence on corporations and subjecting Paralympic and Olympic sports to a business agenda is the path towards degradation.

Time and again, Russia has warned its partners against using double standards and the principle of collective responsibility in sports. Guided by the Olympic Charter, we kept telling them that the Games are a competition of athletes, not countries, and called for making sports politics-free, since politics reduces the values that international sports stand for to nothing, and it turns sports into a tool of manipulation.

Unfortunately, we have been witnessing cases which carry these actions and policies by our partners to the point of absurdity. What happened to our swimmer Yevgeny Rylov recently is a case in point. The International Swimming Federation suspended him for nine months from competition just because be attended a concert on the anniversary of Crimea’s reunification with Russia. This is total nonsense.

Such situations and approaches have been and remain a serious, major problem for both athletes and sports organisations, and for people who realise the huge importance of sports as a unique system for developing individuals and society and promoting ties and friendship between countries and peoples. All this is also obvious to Russia, to its citizens, and therefore we will fulfil all sports-related programmes, plans and commitments. We remain open to broad constructive cooperation with anyone who values the principles of sports and is loyal to sports.
.........................................
Without exaggeration, the contribution of our athletes to the development and promotion of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is enormous. Today, I would like to congratulate you and the veterans of Soviet and Russian sports that are still with us; thank you for your outstanding successes and I wish you all the best.

The glorious traditions of Russian sport will be maintained and strengthened. We will do all we can to protect the rights of our athletes, and the competitions we hold will be open to all our friends and real partners, such as the World Olympians Association and the International Military Sports Council, which has supported Russian athletes.

There are no unfriendly countries for Russia in sports. We are happy to welcome anyone who stands for sports without discrimination or artificial barriers and for the sports ideals of justice, equality and fair competition.

I would like to wholeheartedly congratulate all of you once again and to wish you new victories. Thank you.
..........................................
In conclusion, I would like to add a few words to what our Paralympian has said. I believe that his main idea was that problems are being created for us and that we always become stronger when we overcome these problems.

We have everything we need for this. We have perfectly obvious competitive advantages connected with the size of our country, its scale, its various climate zones, its technological development and the growing government attention to sports, athletes and physical fitness.

I would like to point out again that your example is inspiring millions of people and encouraging government agencies and officials at all levels to respond appropriately to the requirements that appear in connection with your achievements and to join forces to explore new horizons, including in sports.

I would like to congratulate you once again on your achievements at the Olympic Games and to wish every success to our Paralympians. We will do everything I have mentioned here, which is what we will be talking about right now at the Presidential Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sport.

Thank you once again for your achievements, and all the best.

en.kremlin.ru...