Lukashenko: Belarusian sport should make more progress

On 24 March Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko hosted a meeting to discuss Belarus’ performance at the 2022 Winter Olympics and prospects of winter sports in Belarus.

This conversation with officials and sports functionaries was announced by the head of state on 26 February at the national biathlon and cross-country skiing competitions for the prizes of the president of Belarus.

The meeting was attended by senior officials of the National Olympic Committee, the Sport and Tourism Ministry and sports federations, representatives of the legislative and executive authorities, and the regions.

"Four years went down the drain. You wasted public money. There is only one conclusion: this state of affairs can no longer be tolerated. I have set the tasks for you. The state needs the result,” Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized.

In his report, Sport and Tourism Minister Sergei Kovalchuk noted that the potential of Belarusian was not realized. "We could have done much better. Two medals is not the right result. We understand that. A minimum of five and a maximum of ten is what we had to aim for," the minister said.

"We are in debt before the country and the people for the poor performance at the two Olympic Games," he admitted.

According to the leadership of the sports industry, after the Olympics they carried out an analysis of the performance and divided sports into three groups. The first one is those who did not even qualify for the Olympic Games (ice hockey, short track), the second is those who performed poorly (cross-country skiing, speed skating, figure skating, alpine skiing), and the third is those who performed as expected (freestyle skiing and biathlon).

The managerial staff in some federations have been reshuffled, work is underway to restructure the supervisory boards. Many federations have new executives who are not new to sport, all state financial flows have been taken under strict control.

The chief of the mission of the Belarusian delegation at the Games in Beijing 2022 Aleksandr Gagiyev noted that the medal expectations were not fully met. He also reported on the psychological and physical condition of all teams that represented the country at the Games. "It should be noted that involving of foreign specialists has produced good results, but the right psychological atmosphere in the team should be created by our coaches," he said.

In the course of the meeting Aleksandr Lukashenko asked a question: “Being a practical person, I would just like to hear the answer to the main question: we have done everything to ensure that athletes can train and compete well. We have created the conditions. It was not cheap. The result?"

Aleksandr Lukashenko noted that he remembers all the promises. "Before you get down to it, you need to understand where you will get the money. We have invested millions. Where is the dynamics? Where is the progress?"

The president instructed to take stock of the state of things in sport and noted that three people are in charge of sport in the country. These are the deputy prime minister, the sports minister and the president of the National Olympic Committee. In addition, certain duties have been vested with member of the Council of the Republic Dmitry Baskov. "You will be the chief supervisor. You will be responsible for sport. You have huge powers and rights," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

"If you want to work, then get together, take stock of all things not only in winter sports, get rid of slackers," the president demanded. “Sort things out. I'm not going to wait till the next Olympics."

Chairman of the Belarusian Biathlon Federation Andrian Tsibulsky, head coach of the national speed skating team Sergei Minin made their reports at the meeting.

According to the head of the biathlon federation, one of the main reasons for the team's poor performance is the lack of sufficient and stable winning experience at such major competitions.

Sergei Minin stated that even in comparison with Pyeongchang, this sport has made significant progress within a short period of time. "Today, our team (average age is 23) is the youngest in the world. At the Olympic Games, we did not have podium finishes but all the athletes performed as expected. The closest to the podium was Ignat Golovatsiuk. We plan to continue to aim for the most ambitious goals, because Belarus has created all conditions for the development of our sport," he said.

The head of state also urged to decide how to develop national sports and the Olympic movement in the new reality, in the conditions of hostile attitude towards Belarus and Russia on the part of the International Olympic Committee and a number of international federations.

Summing up the results the Belarusian president called on the entire sports industry to work harder.

Source: Belarusian news agency BelTA

Photos courtesy of BelTA