Village Athletes Off to Flying Start

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.