Everyone can support the Olympic athletes
The Turino 2006 Winter Olympics are less than two weeks away. Everyone is getting ready for the games: from athletes, government officials, and journalists to the National Olympic Committee (NOC) partners who have taken on a number of commitments. There was a pleasant surprise for fans from the UMC Company: thanks to the latter, sports aficionados will be able to watch the performance of Ukrainian and other athletes practically in real time. Last Thursday the press center at the Planet Sport Cafe hosted the official launch of the Olympic Web site. By going to www.umc.ua and clicking on the Olympic site banner, visitors will be able to see the day’s latest news from the Turin sports arenas, announcements, experts’ predictions, and also read interviews with our athletes and coaches. But that’s not all. Visitors to the site will have access to “hot” news reports on the lives of athletes and the history of the Olympic Games, glimpses of Turin, and a list of the city’s all important sights to see. The Olympic Web site will furnish information in Ukrainian and Russian. The Webmasters have promised to provide visitors with a large collection of photographs, so that they can view Olympic highlights. Incidentally, this “presence effect” is guaranteed to everyone. Fans will be able to support our athletes by e-mailing every Ukrainian athlete directly on the Web site, while UMC subscribers will be able to do this by sending SMS- announcements to No. 1078 at the standard price.
Ivan Fedorenko, first vice-president of the National Olympic Committee, who attended the launch ceremony, said that news will not be duplicated on the NOC and UMC sites. Information will be updated on the committee’s page less often, perhaps once a day. There are plans to send six journalists from the NOC and probably three from the partner company, excluding those who will stay behind in Ukraine. Before the Olympics in Salt Lake City there were many plans to provide online information support, but the project quietly folded. Let’s hope that the current NOC partner will be more reliable. Fedorenko also said that, just like two years ago, the Olympians will be given a send-off on Independence Square, and all the residents and guests of Kyiv will be able to attend this ceremony scheduled for Feb. 3. The Day asked Fedorenko where our athletes will be staying.
“There are three Olympic villages for this purpose. They will be living in the ones located near their sports facilities.”
“I’ve heard you intend to house the skiers separately from the others.”
“Yes, because of our experience in Salt Lake City. Our guys were living high up the mountains, and they turned out to be not fully prepared functionally for the fact that the ski track was considerably lower. So the results were not so good, far from the ones all of us had expected. This time the NOC leased a small house (rumor has it the rental cost about 25,000 euros) located near the track. So this time there should be no problems with acclimatization.”
“Mr. Fedorenko, this time experts have been unusually stingy with their predictions, like never before. Maybe you will be more frank: which of our boys can win some medals?”
“In general, professionals rarely make predictions. Laymen do this more often. You know very well that the Olympic Games are not a run-of-the-mill competition, and a lot of factors may have an impact on the result. We are pinning great hopes on our ice dancing pair Hrushyna and Honchar. We are also counting on our biathlon athletes, who are now training in France with the local national team. They have already been among the top ten at World Cup stages. Our bobsledders have also had a good showing this season, winning gold and bronze medals at Grand Prix stages. Vyacheslav Kyrylenko and Yuriy Pavlenko said recently that they were expecting, of course, to show a good result but we must take a realistic view of things. How can our bobsled boys compete with their best rivals if Ukraine has only one bobsled track in Ternopil?
