According to sources, Leonid Tyagachev, the president of Russian Olympic Committee, was forced to resign in March 3, because of the result of the Russian athletes got in the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.
Russian athletes’ team got three gold medals, five silver medals and eleven bronze medals, listing 11th among all teams. It’s the worst result to Russian athletes.
Both President and Premier expressed their disappointment at the result.
Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president, indicated on March 1 that those officials who in charge of the training of Russian athletes should resign.
Dmitry Medvedev also said that the country had devoted unprecedented funds for the sports activities. Take what happened in Vancouver into consideration, Dmitry Medvedev said that changes must be made to the system of training.
Vitaly Mutko, the Head of Department of Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy, said to the reporters after coming back from Canada on March 2. He did not think it was a failure of being listed 11th. He said, ‘There are 86 events in all. We strived for medals in 30 events of all.’
However, Vyacheslav Fetisov, the Head of Russian Federal Council Sports Affairs Commission, pointed that the amateurism of the officials caused the failure. He reported on the Federal Commission meeting that “The officials we have are neither professional nor responsible.” He further indicated that the sooner the situation be changed the better.
The vice-president of Duma thought different from Vyacheslav Fetisov. He pointed that even if all officials who were in charge of training the athletes resigned, it wouldn’t change anything. The major reason of the failure is the time difference between Russia and Canada. When the time the athletes were taking competitions, it was actually late night in Russia. The inadaptability caused the failure. Besides, he thought another reason for the failure was that the athletes lacked psychological service before the competition. He once suggested to Vitaly Mutko that he would like to be a volunteer to offer psychological service to the athletes for five to ten minutes before the competitions.
