Ukrainian athletes demand change of federation leadership due to poor conditions for Olympic team preparation
Kyiv, September 6 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Ukrainian athletes demand the leadership of the Ukrainian Athletic Federation be changed and its president Valeriy Borzov dismissed due to their failure to provide proper conditions for the preparation of the national team for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
"This man (Borzov) cannot continue to be the president of the Athletic Federation. Over the 16 years of his tenure he has not created a single new base. He has not once said hello to us. He is an honored man, but believes that he has achieved everything in sport, and owes nothing to anybody. We do not want to work under his direction," Olympic bronze medalist in the relay race Yelizaveta Bryzgina said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.
She recalled the situation with the preparation of the Ukrainian national team to the London Olympics, very poor conditions at the Olympic training and preparation center Sviatoshyn, where athletes came a week before the Olympics.
Bryzgina noted that this year a considerable sum of money had been assigned for the preparation of athletes for the Olympics, but, as it turned out, not all of these funds reach their intended purpose, and Head of the State Service of Youth and Sports Ravil Safiullin was surprised when athletes told him so. Around a hundred Ukrainian athletes signed a complaint handed to the official.
"Everyone saw the conditions for our preparation in a news story by TSN, we are fed up with this and we want to change it. We know how much money is allocated by the state, but somehow it does not get to us," 2008 Olympic bronze medalist in pole vault Denys Yurchenko, who participated in the four latest Olympics, said.
The athletes also said that for criticizing the leadership of the Federation and state coaches they were threatened to be expelled from participation in important sports events.
A personal coach of 2012 Olympic bronze medalist Khrystyna Struy, Serhiy Basenko, said that the coaches got only half the award money for the preparation of Olympic champions and medalists.
As reported, a film crew from the 1+1 channel's Television News Service (TSN) filmed the conditions for the preparation of the Ukrainian athletes before to the London Olympics. The news story showed the athletes standing in queues in a Soviet-style dining room to take soups and salads on their own. At the training base near Kyiv food spoilt quickly as there were no air conditioners and refrigerators. There were also no shops nearby, and it was prohibited to travel to Kyiv as a violation of the training regime.
The athletes were provided with a fitness room with a dirty and torn carpet, no mats and dangerous training simulators. There was even a shortage of hurdles. Multiple world and European champions and Olympic winners used toilets in which the drainage system did not always work, and there was a constant smell of mould and urine.
However, First Deputy Head of the State Service of Youth and Sports of Ukraine Serhiy Hluschenko said that preparations for the 2012 Olympics had been financed in full. The preparation of the Olympic team was funded from Ukraine's state budget. About UAH 215 million were allocated in 2011 and over UAH 348 million in 2012.