4-5 Million Olympic Hryvnias Not Enough

Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh has issued an instruction to disburse payment for old debts within ten days in order to enable Ukrainian athletes to prepare for the XIX Winter Olympic Games to be held at Salt Lake City, Utah, on February 8-24, 2002. He also called for improved funding of the sports sector as a whole. Mr. Kinakh gave this instruction to government departments in charge of finance on October 2 in Kyiv, addressing a meeting of the State Committee of Ukraine for Youth Policies, Sports, and Tourism, Interfax-Ukraine reports. According to Valery Tsybukh, chairman of this committee, the funds still to be disbursed for the preparation of our athletes for the winter Olympics and for the sports sector as a whole have reached about 4-5 million hryvnias (almost $1 million US). The premier also announced he would hold in the immediate future a session of the organizing committee in charge of preparations for the coming winter Olympics and other world competitions. He said everything should be done for the Ukrainian national team to perform “effectively and qualitatively” at these competitions. Mr. Kinakh also pointed out “a certain decline” in the performance of Ukrainian athletes on the world sport arenas. Measures should be taken so that this does not become “an irreversible process,” he said. According to the premier, sports should be radically reformed taking world experience into account. He said he favors amending the physical training and sports legislation, which he thinks no longer meet current requirements. Prime Minister Kinakh noted the necessity of greater attention to training athletic reserves. In addition, he emphasized it is necessary to improve the condition of sports bases, where athletes train for the Olympics and other world competitions, because most of them fail to correspond to contemporary needs. He also ordered drawing up adequate proposals to create favorable conditions to attract investment, including those from abroad, to update sport facilities. Mr. Kinakh said the government is ready to consider a proposal to cut public utility charges and rent for sport facilities, as well as to help put such measures into practice.