By Oleksandr HONCHARUK, The Day, Mykhailo
LYTVYNENKO
Frankly speaking, we have almost forgotten such mass starts, but the scope
of the inauguration ceremony of the All-Ukrainian Rural Summer Sports Games
in the Boryspil (Kyiv oblast) stadium has stirred the imagination of both
veterans and very young athletes. It was like in the old days of stagnation:
picturesque, on a broad scale, and cheerful! And, according to custom,
with a big palianytsia bread baked by prominent athlete Mykhailo Lytvynenko.
As Anatoly Usenko, chairman of the Kolos Sport Society board, told The
Day, "everybody longed for a real holiday, so we had to give them one."
Festivities apart, these competitions, in which about two million people
had already crossed swords, have shown many high results. Small wonder,
for almost all candidates for the 2000 Sydney Olympics took part. Who does
not know the names of shot-putter Oleksandr Bahach, hammer-throwers Andriy
Skvaruk and Oleksiy Krykun, the weight-lifters Ihor Razorenov and Oleh
Chumak, and many other famous Kolos members? Then watch the junior competitors
come. About a hundred children's sports schools have sprung up in district
centers over the past few years. As the proverb says, man does not live
by bread alone.







