No matter how sports officials tuned us to starting pessimism, hardly any of them could have assumed that, joining the last Olympic weekend, Russia would lag behind gold not only from China with America, but also from the UK
But we could lag behind more, but Larisa Ilchenko “gnawed” at the finish of a ten -kilometer swim in open water (that is, not in the pool, but simply in the canal), the victory at once at two Britons at once. “It was not easy to fight them: Patten, for example, charged me with a heel in the eye. I will not say that intentionally, but when she tried to repeat the attempt, I dodged. Okay, even though the swimsuit left to the finish line, which is actually far from always ... ”The South African Natalie du Tua participated in the same swim-a girl who does not have one leg. She did not get the medal. “I am struck by her courage - in May, in Seville, she generally came the fourth of the fifty starting! So I would have given out a separate golden Olympic medal, ”Ilchenko said.
In the men's swimming marathon, the Dutchman van der Weiden won, a man who was diagnosed with Cancer a few years ago. When they say that the victory at the games is primarily a victory over themselves, few people think that behind these banal words, every time they have their own story.
Sisyphus labor
Our common story is quite sad. It is best summed up (preliminarily, since the number was signed before the end of the Olympics) Vladimir Salmanovich Maksimov, the great is that he will go down in history as a repeated Olympic champion in handball - first as a player, and then as a coach. And these games for the coach of the Russian Male team in handball are the latter.
- That's all, I'm leaving, finally and irrevocably.
- Maybe you will still cool down?
- For this I have been for too many years. And how many of them I deal with sisyphus labor, it’s hard to even count. By the way, I'm not at all sure that if we even became champions, and did not fly out in the quarter -finals, the attitude in the country to handball would have changed.
- Does it leave much to be desired?
- Do you know what and how we exist for? It comes, for example, to me, let’s say, a representative of an organization who wants to help our long -suffering sports financially. He comes and says: “We are ready to allocate 25 thousand dollars to you, but the receipt must be given at 50.” And I give it, because this money is vital for us. And then I find out that it turns out that we had no refusal to prepare for Beijing-and somewhere near Krasnoyarsk I held fees at the same time at the same $ 25 thousand. Or suddenly, in hindsight, it turns out that my coaching room in a certain hotel was pulled by half a thousand dollars a day.
- You, as the head coach of the national team, do not even get money?
-I'm okay, but the players! Well, the Olympics must be won so that once every four years the guys receive $ 50 thousand! And any place below the third - and you are an outcast. Free. I recall the 93rd year-Russia won its first gold at the World Cup in Youth and Enthusiasm. But 15 years have passed since then, have we added somewhere organizationally?
- Why would it be advised to start your successor?
- From the discussion of salaries and training conditions. And then I would already begin to discuss the tasks.
Further - more, stronger
Tasks, they have always been grandiose in our country. With the implementation, just big problems. When, from many Olympic species, we shoot exactly in four - struggle, athletics, gymnastics of rhythmic and synchronous swimming, we will lag behind more and more.
Take at least a bicycle, where the same British left ours like standing. The offended President of the Gusyatnikov cycling Federation later said that this, it turns out, is only the beginning of our further lag. According to his confidential information, for some time, the British began to invest 36 in sports (and where only the person whose team took one frail bronze on all, managed to recognize such an accurate figure?!) Millions of pounds for each Olympic cycle.
Hearing this, the Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko was offended: Gusyatnikov heads the federation, loses everything, and begins to blame for others-the ministry, the Olympic committee, for someone else. There would not be the right position: this is our general level, and the result, and all of us to answer for it. That is - nobody.
