The results of the sports year

2015 The sports year was initially calm. So often happens with odd years, when there are no Olympic Games, no World Cup or European Football. This state of affairs has been established from about 1994, when the International Olympic Committee "divorced" winter and summer Olympiads so that they do not pass in one year, as it was before. Of course, this indicator of the significance of one or another sports year is not absolute - there are always enough sporting events in the world. For example, the annual Super Bowl - the final of the American football championship - is almost more important and promoted for North America than the Olympics. And in 2015, in addition to the Super Bowl, there were no less significant tournaments, for example, the world championships in water sports in Kazan and athletics in Beijing , as well as, of course, Copa America, that is, the Latin America Championship in football. But still experts, realizing that in 2015 there will be neither world and European football forums, nor Olympic Games, they did not make a special bet for this year.

They didn’t do it - and miscalculated! Because other events came, as they say, from where they did not expect.

I think that the main “shock of the foundations” was everything related to a large -scale scandal around corruption in the International Football Federation. The main thing is not even that in the end, lowering the details, President Fifa Joseph Blatter , who had already announced his final departure, was deprived of in stages. And not even the shocking fact that the main applicant for the post of head of FIFA and the head of UEFA Michelle Platini was excommunicated with him for 8 years. The main thing seems to be that there was a government for powerful and theoretically not subordinate to international sports officials. I really want to believe that the current lesson will go to their successors for the future.

No less important - on Russian scale, of course, there was a Russian football story with the expulsion of Nikolai Tolstoy from the post of president of the Russian Football Union and almost simultaneous removal from his post of the head coach of the Russian national football team Fabio Capello . This story turned out to be extremely unsightly: at first, an exorbitant contract was concluded with a deliberately meaningless time, even before the start of the 2014 World Cup. Then this contract was blamed for the Tolstoy, despite the fact that the contract was also signed by the Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Vitaly Mutko. As a result, Tolstoy and Capello were dismissed, the post of President of the RFU occupied the same Mutko, who was not awake to combine the state and public leadership positions, and the part -time was also at the head of the national team - the head coach of CSKA Leonid Slutsky. He perfectly coped with the task of withdrawing the national team to the European Championship, but the club under his leadership ended the football season, frankly, failed: he did not achieve anything in the Champions League, and in the country's championship he lost the advantage ... Slutsky, by the way, admitted that after the European Championship, the combination for him would be impossible. But such a "discovery of America" only confirms the established opinion of football experts ...

In general, in Russian football it was clearly not bored in 2015! Take at least the championship of the country: Rostov under the leadership of Kurban Berdyev is in 2nd place! The young coaches of Spartak and Lokomotiv rush about in search of their game. "Krasnodar" under the leadership of the same young mentor consolidates the gained experience of last year. Zenit is on the verge of the loss of the next foreign coach and looks optimistic in the European Cup Spring, having previously received one of the best attacking countries Artem Dziubu, and at the end of December, learning that his other striker, Brazilian Hulk, was recognized as the best player in 2015. CSKA, of course, slowed down by December, but the fact that the army team will not be in the spring, unlike Zenit, play in European competitions, most likely makes them the most likely candidates for the championship.

Meanwhile, Russian sport in the past year shook several more largest doping scandals. At the beginning of the year, the Russian anti -doping agency (Rusada) disqualified five representatives of the famous center of sports walking Viktor Chygin. Then, CHEGIN himself, a coach of the international class, regularly gave Russia gold Olympic medals from work in athletics. After the Russad itself was disqualified, its leadership was resigned in full force, and the Council of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for an indefinite period suspended Russia's membership in this organization. Today, Russian athletes do not have the right to participate in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next year, and there are no guarantees that this situation will change. Too dirty spot turned out to be not only in Russian athletics, but at the same time throughout Russian sports . Wash from him will be a very difficult task.

However, Russian athletes have not already performed vividly at the World Championship in Beijing, winning only two gold medals, one “silver” and “bronze”. The ninth team -building place is the absolute worst result of the Russian national team for all the time of its performance at the world championships. Of course, some famous athletes like Elena Isinbaeva did not perform the tournament, but such a deafening failure in front of the Olympics is a very serious “call”. Exactly the same can be said about the masters of Russian water sports. According to the results of the World Cup in Kazan (that is, at home, in Russia), Russian watermen succeeded only in synchronous swimming (the first seven out of eight places), but in other species, which were only six, they won only one gold medal - in classical swimming. But athletics and swimming is perhaps the most “medalemic” Olympic sports. To predict the next Russian Olympic failure next year in Rio is still early, but the chances of such an alignment of events are very considerable. This is sad, but it seems that Russian sport largely repeats the development of the life of the country as a whole: a decline is a decline, a crisis is a crisis, in sports, in politics, in public life.

But while the court is the case, Russia carefully acquires sports "accessories." The first of them is the law on the revival of the physical education and sports complex "is ready for work and defense." The TRP is returning! 1.2 billion rubles are forced to execute it in the federal budget! Of course, the country's paternalist administration is impossible without controlled norms and requirements. But will the Ministry of Sports develop and implement the most difficult expensive social projects? So far, nothing is known about the mass introduction of the TRP into life of the country.

The second "accessory" is with a huge pomp running a publicly available sports television "Match-TV". It took the frequencies of the abolished channel "Russia 2", which previously replaced from the air ... Sports TV channel. What happened as a result of such a strange "change in places of terms"? The main result can be considered a kind of media "verticalization" in this television industry. The fact is that the Match-TV channel partially combined assets and frequencies with NTV Plus, coupled with some broadcast rights. This happened because before the Russia 2 TV channel was a member of the VGTRK holding. And now the Match-TV has become part of the NTV-and, accordingly, the NTV Plus system, which is part of Gazprom-Media. This, of course, was resolved by the issue of broadcasting rights - by combining them. But fundamentally more broadcasts on the "match" did not become, which is surprising. Alas, their potential places were taken by the “challenging” programs, and the head talk shows “everything for the match” to the title of “information and analytical” does not reach catastrophically. In general, what to say, if the appearance of the “match” was preceded by the Internet scandal sucked out of the finger, when the telecumentist Vasily Utkin accused the head of the channel Tina Kandelaki of the Yellowzer and unprofessionalism! This alone destroyed all the hopes for the seriousness of the new channel, because both participants in the scandal can hardly claim the title of "the most intellectual" or "most professional" sports television employee. The ratings of the “match” are not growing, new broadcasts are not added, and the “Super Rost -Speech, which is characteristic of Tina, is gradually leading to the absence of spectators. Broadcasts, and often - without sound! -And now a large number of body bores are watching, and you can see what the “match” does not give on “Eurosport”, on the Internet, and on the NTV-Plus remaining on the air. In general, this "accessory" does not work yet.

What remains to remember in 2015? Of course, the Euro -Olympiad in Baku . This tournament, held under the patronage of the president of the country, Ilham Aliyev with a fantastic pomp, nevertheless has not yet been particularly recognized in the world sports community. It is not clear whether it will be held a second time, whether it will become an official Olympic tournament. The President of Azerbaijan in sports and other large PR events clearly follows the path of his Russian colleague. Alas, sometimes this path gives only a temporary resonance, as in an old joke, when all the steam went into a whistle ...

In conclusion, we recall several more iconic sports events of the outgoing year. The victory of the Chili team on the football Copa America was the first in history for this country. Three large helmet tournaments were won this year by American Serena Williams and Serb Novak Djokovic, confirming two tennis thesis. First: to win all four large helmet tournaments today cannot even the greatest players. Second: new great tennis players are not yet very noticeable. Barcelona remains at the football peak, winning the Champions League in May, and in December - the World Cup championship (former intercontinental cup). The coach Vyacheslav Bykov was finally able to lead the St. Petersburg SKA to the victory in the hockey Cup of Gagarin , after which ... left his post. Surely I forgot something, but it's time to stop, because the next year is special in sports. It will not have two main events, but three. In the summer, the Olympics in Brazil and the European Football Championship in France will be held. And in September, they will be complemented by the long -awaited, long -not held world of hockey world in Canada, where almost all the best players in the world will be collected - at least if the Russian Hockey Federation does not “go otherwise” and will not cancel its participation.