The long-awaited first start of the summer season in Russia's doping-free athletics — the Russian team championship in Sochi — ended on Thursday with Olympic high jump champion Maria Lasitskene in tears in the mixed zone during a conversation with reporters. And this especially strongly emphasized the hopelessness and even tragedy of the current situation in our country of this sport, which, it seems, will not soon recover from the blows of the last decade — if ever it will. Sport correspondent spent two days at the Slava Metreveli Stadium and tells.
Now I ask myself: if I had not stood next to Maria Lasitskene in the last moments of the Sochi tournament on Thursday, would I have been in a different frame of mind? After all, the organizers of the Russian team championship, it must be admitted, tried to make the competition interesting to watch. The presentation of athletes before the start of each discipline was preceded by intriguing music, and what was happening at the stadium was accompanied by a commentary from two hosts at once, who did their job very well. From athletics, we are slowly learning how to do shows. In general, I liked it, the audience would too.
Why»? Yes, because there were no spectators. Although the entrance was made free — after the cancellation of covid restrictions, the gates of the Yug-Sport federal sports base, where the Metreveli stadium is located, were open, and anyone could enter them. Alas, there were none. Last autumn, I remember, Sochi was scolded for the fact that there were almost no spectators at the stage of the Russian Grand Prix in figure skating. Football and hockey clubs from this city also regularly «arrive» from spiteful critics for empty stands. Something did not work in the Sochi system of attracting fans even now.And this, perhaps, is the first reason why you must admit to yourself — no, the mood cannot be festive if you play bravura music for yourself. Yes, in million-plus cities, not flattened like Sochi, between the sea and the mountains, which makes it an adventure to get anywhere beyond the nearest beach, or provincial centers, where any sporting event enlivens life, like a passing train, a forgotten half-station, someone else comes to athletics. But let's be honest — for the «Queen of Sports» it's still a failure. And this is not the case in Sochi globally.
People will go to the super-spectacle of the highest level in any city. And even come from nearby. But Russian athletics, unfortunately, in the seven and a half years of the doping ban has lost almost all the old star athletes and has not received a single new one. Only in walking the results are close to the world level — but we recently talked about the methods by which this is achieved in an article about the Russian Championship in Saransk.
At the very first tournament of the season in Sochi, the results were from very average and below, except for Danil Lysenko's jump of 2.30. Moreover, of the athletes with significant titles, only Sergey Shubenkov managed to win. But this victory was almost a miracle: the 2015 world champion was inferior to Artem Makarenko for almost the entire distance of the 110-meter hurdle run. And only after the last obstacle he overtook the decathlete, who sometimes switched to the hurdler, ahead of him in the end by 0.04 seconds. With a result by the standards of Shubenkov, simply absurd — 13.55. Even with the beginning of the season.
As for the rest of the athletes with titles and titles… The 2013 world champion in long jump Alexander Menkov was only fourth, and his result of 7.50 is more than a meter worse than 10 years ago. The silver medalist of the same world championship in the triple jump Ekaterina Koneva, who once flew steadily to the 15-meter mark, now jumps to 14.34 — and this is not enough even in Sochi to win. And finally, Lasitskene lost to Belarusian Karina Demidik. In fairness, not a noname — the world champion among juniors, whose personal record is 2 meters. Yes, and the reason for the jump of only 1.88 meters for Maria is respectful — an Achilles injury. But the logic of the catastrophe in Russian athletics, which since the fall of 2015 has been brewing in its own cauldron, and this result falls.
The inexorable law of life in action. Just as it is impossible to learn a foreign language to the level of fluency without the practice of communicating with its native speakers, it is also impossible to show high results in sports, competing with the strongest only in correspondence mode. For seven years, our athletes went to competitions, receiving a humiliating neutral status — but not all of them were awarded it. Those who received reminded the world of themselves. At least the very best of them. How Lasitskene can jump with a freshly healed injury, she showed at the Golden Olympics in Tokyo. In the same way, Shubenkov continued all these years to storm record seconds, and Anzhelika Sidorova, already without the Russian flag, became the world champion and the silver medalist of the Olympics.
However, according to the results of all these years, only the tip of the iceberg remained afloat. The base melted and turned into a swamp. Each domestic athletics tournament is like a meeting of graduates. Where are these graduates — coaches aging every year. They walk past each other, hugging old acquaintances, accompanying their young students and students. Those are beautiful — some with bright makeup, some with half-body tattoos. Athletics is a sport where all this can be seen without the danger of hearing the phrase «what are you staring at.»Here are just students and students, these for the most part losers. Old school — in this case, unfortunately, it is literally old. Older coaches are conservative, and if they, like most athletes, do not go anywhere and exchange experiences, it is logical that their methods eventually turn into naphthalene.
Those the top specialists that we still have are not busy creating our own athletics schools and putting the production of high-level athletes on a stream, but targeted work with nuggets, which they were lucky to find. Because at least it brings in income — the champions share a percentage of the prize money. The salary for the work itself is cheap.
Unfortunately, Russian athletes are unfortunate that at the world level this sport is controlled by perhaps the most reactionary sports federation in existence. World Athletics has been seized by those who, with particular Jesuitism, are taking revenge on us for past victories. Let some of them really have been obtained dishonestly — Russian athletics has long ago rewound their term for these sins, sorry for the jargon. But Sebastian Coe and company have a tight grip on us and are not going to let go. Yes, we were forced, gritting our teeth with anger, to lift the sanctions in the doping case, and forcing our federation to pay tribute for the next three years for some kind of monitoring of the fulfillment of the restoration conditions. But the suspension of all Russian athletes en masse for political reasons is not going to be removed — despite any recommendations from the IOC.
So now the remaining, but fading every year, Russian stars are suffering, and those who are already in the third generation are not involved in doping scandals in any way. For them, the stories that someone once performed under their own flag on the international stage are akin to the legends and myths of Ancient Greece. Once upon a time it was and most likely not true. But young people at least have fun at competitions by demonstrating beautiful nails and biceps to each other. Those who will not see anything new go to tournaments — but as if by inertia.True, they were cheered up in Sochi by the arrival of a film crew from a German television company — by the way, the same one that, with its films about Russian doping at the end of 2014, began to bury Russian athletics in the grave. «I can't even remember the last time I gave an interview in English,» remarked Shubenkov, who at one time charmed all foreign writers with his brilliant knowledge of this language. True, he spoke in Russian, and all the journalists standing nearby understood him.
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“It is clear that while the conflict in Ukraine is going on, the position of World Athletics will not change, that is, it is useless to appeal to some kind of reason, higher justice, to the prudence of sports officials,” the world champion said on Wednesday after his labored victory. «That's why it's all sad. Until the crisis is resolved, we can't expect any changes in our sporting situation.»
But when asked about his plans, 32-year-old Shubenkov answers that he will run for the next two seasons. He makes it clear — regardless of whether he will be allowed to the Olympics or not. He states that he has no chances to go to Paris, even according to the criteria that the IOC has formulated — despite the fact that World Athletics, most likely, will not even come down to them. He jokes about his club affiliation — the world champion has an excellent sense of humor, but it is clear that deep down he is not laughing.
And the next day the same thing, only in other words , Lasickene also said, struggling with sobs that were choking her.
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«I consider that my international career is over,» — after these words, tears flowed from Maria's eyes, and the federation's press officer, who was standing nearby, suggested that she stop talking to the press. But the Olympic champion gathered her strength and said: «Everything has been decided a long time ago, no matter what we do, I think they are not waiting for us there. I don't have any hopes. I'm just not ready to end my career yet. I want to jump more.»
The only understandable reason why the stars have not left yet (although Sidorova, in fact, has already done this, having decided to devote herself to the family), and at least some young guys have serious sports ambitions — ministry sports and the federation give them to earn prize money at domestic competitions. But this is just the case when you can remember the banality — happiness is not in money and not even in their quantity. Each athlete grows up with an Olympic dream — and no exhortations that this is temporary and must be tolerated will not force him to consider the Spartakiad as the main start of his life. The situation in athletics is such that this is exactly what everything is going to.