• Українська
  • Русский
  • English
Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

MEDALS SHORT IN SNOWLAND

24 February, 1998 - 00:00


XVIII Olympic Games were wrapped up in Nagano last week, the third games without the USSR and second with Ukraine
participating. 56 athletes made up the Ukrainian national team winning one silver medal, which means Ukraine now shares eighteenth place with Denmark.

Considering the results of the games, people will be straight when Ukrainian delegation comes back: there were many tourists among the athletes, who represented Ukraine in Nagano. Why were they sent there? Training promising young sportsmen is possible only when a competitive result is guaranteed. There could also be another answer: if fewer sportsmen had been registered, fewer assistants would have gone along. And many sports and state officials went to Japan as assistants.

Of course it is hard for Ukraine to compete with such winter sports countries as Norway, Canada, Austria, Holland, or Japan. They have been playing these sports for centuries, and the training conditions there are ideal. But besides these competitors our biathlon competitors Ruslan Lysenko (30th) and Andriy Derizemlya (45th) have been outdistanced by three Russians who took the fourth, 12th and 22nd positions, two Latvians, who came in fifth and sixth, and one Estonian in 18th position. There is also a Kazakh who came in 24th and Belarus in 27th position.

To become champions in freestyle skiing was not simple either. Ukrainian athletes also competed in the ski jump. In the early series they could be been high up in the standings. In her qualifying Alla Tsuper came in second, and three of our other women finished in the top twelve, making it into the finals, and all four of our girls (aged 16 to 18) finished in the top ten but without medals.

There obviously were some mistakes in strategy. Fifth position in the female relay is not a success at all. Experienced Valentyna Tserbe came in 13th after the first stage, then Tetiana Vodopyanova went to the extreme and came in sixth in the third stage. But if it is all because of the athletes themselves, then why are coaches needed? To grease the skis?

Photo AP:


Alla Tsuper

 

Issue: 
Rubric: