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Olympic equipment presented

The Russian Olympic Committee and its partner, the Bosco company, yesterday at the skating rink on Red Square presented the clothes in which Russian athletes will compete at the start of the upcoming Winter Games in Vancouver and in which they will possibly receive Olympic medals and generally appear in public.

This time, the designers tried to take into account all the situations that our athlete might find himself in abroad. The collection of 54 items that every Russian Olympian should receive includes dress jeans (the team will wear them to march at the opening ceremony of the Olympics), as well as women's pumps with heels (the place of use at sporting events is not specified). Almost all items bear traces of Bosco's signature pattern. But if earlier it resembled a firebird, now, according to the designers, it is only part of it - a feather. According to the legend developed by the organizers, a feather that falls from a bird retains its magical properties for a long time, and then turns into gold. Many participants in yesterday's ceremony were counting on the same miracles in Vancouver 2010.

The official press release, and after it the President of the ROC Leonid Tyagachev, in almost the same words, recalled that the Bosco company won the tender for equipment for the Olympic team at the Games of 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016, and the total amount of the transaction was over 100 million USD Turin 2006 champion Svetlana Zhurova, in turn, remembered that she always liked the colors of her equipment. “Foreigners recently confessed to me that when they see Russian athletes in red, they begin to be afraid,” said a famous speed skater, and now a State Duma deputy and lieutenant colonel of the internal service.

But even with the abundance of the right color in the team’s equipment, Svetlana Zhurova is very cautiously optimistic about the upcoming Olympics. “Judging by the results of last season, it will be difficult,” Zhurova admitted. — We can only hope that our athletes will come together and we will be third in the team competition. The main thing is that we earn medals in our strategic sports. I mean skiing, biathlon, skating, figure skating and hockey.”

It was already difficult for skiers and biathletes during the uniform demonstration ceremony - try running on skis on ice. In addition, the biathletes were sometimes prevented from keeping their balance by the rifles that outweighed them, and during the performance they were allowed to aim exclusively in the direction of GUM, and not the Kremlin. The skaters were fine. Irina Rodnina, paired with Maxim Marinin, received a lot of applause during their short program on the ice. It looks like it’s time for not only Vyacheslav Fetisov to return.

Andrey VDOVIN