Vladimir Putin encouraged the fighters with a visit

Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin watched the final of the World Judo Championships in Chelyabinsk and watched the Russian men's team win silver. Kommersant special correspondent ANDREY KOLESNIKOV believes, however, that Vladimir Putin’s thoughts that day were occupied with something else.

Working trip of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chelyabinsk. Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) during a visit to the World Judo Championship at the Traktor Ice Arena sports complex

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Azarov / buy photo

Working trip of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chelyabinsk. Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) during a visit to the World Judo Championship at the Traktor Ice Arena sports complex

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Azarov / buy photo

Working trip of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chelyabinsk. Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) during a visit to the World Judo Championships at the Traktor Ice Arena sports complex.

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Azarov / buy photo

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Having lost in the final on the tatami, in the locker room our judokas realized that they had actually won silver

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Azarov / buy photo

Working trip of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chelyabinsk. Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) during a visit to the World Judo Championships at the Traktor Ice Arena sports complex.

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Azarov / buy photo

Working trip of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chelyabinsk. Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) during a visit to the World Judo Championship at the Traktor Ice Arena sports complex

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Azarov / buy photo

Working trip of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chelyabinsk. Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) during a visit to the World Judo Championship at the Traktor Ice Arena sports complex

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Azarov / buy photo

Working trip of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chelyabinsk. Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) during a visit to the World Judo Championship at the Traktor Ice Arena sports complex

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Azarov / buy photo

Working trip of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chelyabinsk. Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) during a visit to the World Judo Championship at the Traktor Ice Arena sports complex.

Photo: Kommersant / Dmitry Azarov / buy photo

Chelyabinsk yesterday cheered at the Traktor stadium with such passion, as if it were watching the Russian Hockey Championship, and not the World Judo Championship (I don’t think the Chelyabinsk residents could have gotten it mixed up). The small support group from Japan, against the backdrop of the reaction of the audience, seemed indifferent to judo, and did not understand its intricacies.

But the hall was sorting it out. And it was difficult not to understand something if the score 100:0 flashed on the scoreboard at intervals of several minutes (this meant the end of the match, and more often than not in favor of the Russian team).

- What's happening? — Meanwhile, my Chelyabinsk neighbor nervously asked his friend.

“I suspect that the Japanese woman again beat ours with some kind of ippon.”

Meanwhile, it was ippon that she won - the guy guessed right.

For two days, the Russian team did not win a single medal at the home world championship. But there was still a final men's team match ahead.

Vladimir Putin appeared in the hall for the start of the women's team final. Before the France-Mongolia match, a strange event occurred: from the area where fans in wheelchairs were comfortably accommodated, a man suddenly rolled out and rushed at high speed to the podium, where Vladimir Putin was sitting in the ninth or tenth row. No one has ever gotten closer to the President of Russia in this way and so quickly.

They took it in numbers

The stadium security could not keep up with him, but still one guard, in a desperate rush, finally got the stroller. And even after being captured, the man in the wheelchair tried to break through to Vladimir Putin. And his attempts were not hopeless: he handled his wheelchair masterfully, unlike the guards at the stadium, and besides, fighting with an immobilized person was somehow, apparently, inconvenient.

But, in my opinion, he himself could, in my opinion, immobilize anyone, although in the end he managed to turn his back to Vladimir Putin, who hardly noticed this impulse, since he was looking at the tatami.

So the historic meeting, the purpose of which remained unclear, did not take place, or at least was postponed.

The French women won, and the men's final Russia-Japan began. The desired result would redeem everything. And the score was already 2:0 in favor of the Russian team, and happiness was already possible, at least not excluded, because it was still hard to believe that it was possible to defeat so many Japanese judokas at once, each of whom was a world champion several times , and an Olympic champion, and in general to everyone in world judo.

But Russian judokas still lost their last three matches.

Vladimir Putin entered the locker room after the awards ceremony, in which he did not take part. He said a few words to the girls, one of whom had a bandaged (and, it seems, plaster) hand.

“Yes, it’s broken,” she nodded in response to Vladimir Putin’s glance.

We waited for the men's team. I was amazed when I saw them: some, in my opinion, could barely stand on their feet after five minutes of their fights. Ninety-kilogram Aslan Kambiev, who lost in the last fight, seemed even nauseous.

The President told them that they could have won against the Japanese, although this still seems incredible, and took a photo with them. There were no long conversations. In general, it seemed to me that for the first time in recent years, judo, which Vladimir Putin watched from the podium, did not affect him as usual.

When the president left, I asked Aslan Kambiev whether he really could have won against that powerful and somehow inexhaustible Japanese.

“Of course,” he shook his head, apparently still disagreeing with the fact that he lost. “I just fell over... Well, I fell and couldn’t pull my leg out.”

And he fell into a chair, completely exhausted.

Judo hosted a reception for the President