By Owen Slot, September 29, 2008. From the Timesonline.Great Britain’s hopes of making further gains up the medal table at the London 2012 Olympics may hit a brick wall in the shape of a multibillion-rouble funding programme backed by ten of the wealthiest businessmen in Russia, including Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea FC owner.
Such were the vertiginous heights of Britain’s fourth-place finish at the Beijing Games last month that, for much of the Olympics, Team GB were lying third ahead of a Russia team experiencing their worst Games since they first entered the Olympics as the Soviet Union, in 1952.
This did not go down well in Moscow. Long before Beijing came on the horizon, Russia had set about rejuvenating much of the old sports machine that formerly led the Olympic world. However, the disappointment of Beijing has resulted in Abramovich and this group of oligarchs being called together by Dmitri Medvedev, the President, who has asked for their help to fund the march up the medal table, away from Britain and in pursuit of the United States and China.
As well as Abramovich, the group includes the richest man in Russia, Oleg Deripaska, whose personal wealth was recently valued at $28 billion (about £15.2 billion). Eight of the ten funders of this planned Russian comeback are listed by Forbes.com as being among the 100 wealthiest people in the world.
The other key figure in the foreground is Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, who is passionate about judo, a sport in which he has attained black-belt standard, and is apparently distinctly unhappy that Russia, one of the world’s leading judo nations, came home from Beijing empty-handed. In Athens four years ago, Russian judokas won five medals, this time round it was none. It was Putin who first gathered the businessmen together in 2005 to form the Russian Olympians Foundation and an £8 million fund was amassed for the first year to fund athletes, coaches, specialists and former Olympic champions. The funding has been replicated on an annual basis since and this year, in May, a further £7 million prize fund was established.
Britain’s Beijing medal-winners earned no prize-money for their Olympic achievements, but the Russian medal-winners received on average £100,000 from the fund, which was separate from the further bonus from the Russian Olympic Committee, whose handouts were £25,000, £15,000 and £10,000 respectively for gold, silver and bronze.
However, dissatisfaction with the results from Beijing resulted in the Foundation being called together again by Medvedev. When the Russia team returned from Beijing, the medal-winners were treated to a reception at the Kremlin where the president promised them each a luxury car as a further bonus but also declared that Russia could do better. “This is not the limit to what we can do,” he said. “We should start preparing for the next Olympic Games. We have to raise new champions.”
There was then convened a meeting of the ten founders of the Foundation with President Medvedev, where he imparted the same message. A fortnight ago they signed off the plans for the next Olympiad.
“We have enough money now,” Alexander Katushev, executive director of the Foundation, told The Times. “We have over 1 billion roubles per year [about £20 million]. I think that is enough for the moment. You also have to bear in mind the state funding, which is bigger than this fund.” Indeed it is. The ratio of state funding to private finance is around 80-20.
“Some weren’t happy to see our Olympic team take third place in Beijing,” Katushev said. “Everyone said, ‘We must do better.’ Part of the fund is for the medallists of Beijing, as a sign of our gratitude. But it is also for future medals; it provides an incentive to win and the support required to train well day by day.”
Putin’s influence in all this is huge. The drive for Olympic success is tied in with national pride but it is also driven by Russia’s hosting of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014, which is Putin’s personal project.
Putin’s passion for judo is such that Kate Howey, the British double Olympic medal-winner, is one of his favourite athletes. At a Buckingham Palace state banquet in his honour, she was the only athlete invited to meet him.
Howey is now a coach and spends a fortnight a year in Russia. At the European Junior Championships recently, she met the Russia coaches, whom, she said, were “very nervous about losing their jobs”.
She added: “Russia not medalling in the Olympics is unheard of. With Putin being judo-mad, they have him to answer to. Apparently there’s going to be a real shake-up.
“I know their top athletes get government money and don’t want for anything. But the facilities - though there are a lot of them - are on the whole not great. It is hard and it is different over there. Our youth of today get used to hotel beds and clean towels; over there it is bunk beds and cold showers. But overall, from being a massive Olympic powerhouse to being chased by little Great Britain - I don’t think they will like that very much at all.”
Indeed, and the timing of new Russian investment leaves no doubt about a likely comeback in 2012, a point that has not been lost on Britain’s elite performance body, UK Sport.
“The fact that Russia are potentially responding to a relatively poor performance in Beijing should come as no surprise,” UK Sport said. “We will continue to monitor their strengths as an Olympic nation - and where their likely medals will come from.” Put your money on judo and a very different Russia in 2012.
- The comeback of the Russian sporting machine cannot be seriously contemplated without fears of the return of the systematic doping regimes of the old Eastern bloc.
Such fears were reignited last week when five Russian race walkers were suspended for testing positive for erythropoietin, the performance-enhancing blood-booster.
Two of these walkers had recorded world record times at the national trials in March but were removed from competition before they could compete in Beijing.
The five walkers follow the seven Russian female athletes who were busted for doping offences a fortnight before the Beijing Games. Earlier in the year, eight Russian rowers were also suspended for doping offences.
