The number eight is considered auspicious in China. Indeed, in Chinese the word for “eight” sounds a lot like the word for “prosper” or “wealth.” And so, the summer Olympics in Beijing will begin on August 8, 2008, at precisely 8:08:08 pm.
Whether such numerology will help the home team is debatable. Yet, it should certainly not be quickly discounted; in Olympic competition, the margin between winners and losers is often so slim that even superstition is a factor. And so, rebounding this spring from impressive sporting victories in hockey, soccer and tennis (see Sports News, page 15), Russian athletes have every reason to knock wood, spit thrice and don lucky socks. After all, glory is fleeting and good fortune does not last forever.
That said, Vyacheslav Fetisov – three time Stanley Cup winner, two time Olympic gold medalist, and current head of the Federal Agency for Sport and Physical Culture – is optimistic. The 2008 Olympics, he said, will be an unprecedented trial for Russian sport. This is the first Olympic games when almost none of the Russian athletes were trained by the old Soviet system. And, unlike athletes in the chaotic 1990s, who were battered about by uncertainty (finally competing as a “Unified Team” in Barcelona in 1992), these competitors are well prepared.
“They have everything they need,” Fetisov said. “They travel to all sorts of foreign competitions, and do their training wherever and however they like. They have excellent technical support. In short, the only thing they need is success. For the last few years, state financing of sport has grown not by a few percentage points, but has multiplied. And there is no other country in the world where Olympic champions get as generous premiums as in Russia – about €200,000, not including expensive apartments, prestigious cars and other substantial gifts. So, it seems the only thing left is for them to win.”
What about home field advantage?
“A lot of people are talking about the heat in Beijing, about support from the home crowd,” Fetisov continued, “But when and where has it ever been easy for us Russians? Perhaps only in Moscow in 1980. So everything depends on the character of the athlete. If the new generation has it, then we will be the leaders. If they falter… Well, no, I am counting on success.”
If history is any guide, then Fetisov, and Russia’s athletes, are on solid ground. At the most recent summer Olympics in Athens (where heat was also a great concern), Russia was second in overall medals. The U.S. was first and China was third (see table, page 34). One might even hope that Russia could rise to the top of this ranking for the first time since post-Soviet Russia has been going it alone as an Olympic team.
But this does not seem very likely. Yet. So says Vitaly Smirnov, who for many years headed the Russian National Olympic Committee and who now is its honorary president.
“I don’t think we should expect any fundamental changes in Beijing,” Smirnov said. “The U.S. team is extremely strong. And if, as in the last Olympiad, the Americans win 14-17 golds in the disciplines where they are traditionally strong – swimming and track and field, then it would be quite difficult to defeat them. The Chinese are strong in basically four events: gymnastics, diving, weightlifting and, of course, ping pong. Those are their specialties. And it would be difficult for them to quickly dominate in others. What is more, home turf is not always helpful: the fans demand victories and athletes’ nerves cannot always withstand that pressure.”
If this begins to have the sound of a military campaign, that should not be surprising. National pride is ever at stake in the Olympics, and strategy is everything. Smirnov, not surprisingly, is of the opinion that Russia has a unique advantage in these games.
“If we speak entirely objectively, then our Russian team is the most well-rounded,” Smirnov said. “We aspire to medals in almost every event. And, with a certain measure of success, we could take first place in 30. Perhaps you recall the reaction of our athletes – the captains of the various teams – at the Olympic conference, when there was talk about how we would be in the ‘troika’ [among the top three teams].”
At that conference, many of the captains in different sports got up on the podium and pronounced that Russia had real chances of winning in this or that event. Certainly, among the athletes, desire is not lacking.
So who, in reality, are the leading hopefuls for gold medals in Beijing? World record holder Yelena Isinbayeva is widely expected to repeat her gold in the women’s pole vault, and Tatyana Lebedeva (see interview, page 36) is a top contender for gold in both the long jump and the triple jump. Yelena Soboleva recently set records in the 800m, 1500m and mile runs.
Synchronized swimming would also seem a strong bet. According to Tatyana Pokrovskaya, the graceful blonde coach of the Russian team, “My girls have never lost to anyone at the Olympics.”
Russia’s rise as a tennis power, particularly in the women’s rankings, has coach Shamil Tarpishev hoping for golds in women’s singles and doubles play. “I have especially high hopes for Maria Sharapova,” he said. In May, Sharapova was ranked 1st in the world, Svetlana Kuznetsova was ranked 4th, Anna Chakvetadze was 6th and Elena Dementieva was 8th. The French Open changed these numbers, but the fact that no other country has as many top-ranked women players will not be altered.
Less well-known is the story of Russian women’s strength in the marathon. Indeed, of the world’s 16 fastest female marathoners in 2008, five of them are Russian, and all but one of them are in their 30s. In April, 38-year-old Irina Timofeyeva won the Hamburg Marathon by breaking a course record; Nailya Yulamanova won May’s Prague Marathon; and Alevtina Biktimirova placed second in the 2008 Boston Marathon after winning the Honolulu Marathon in December. Galina Bogomolova, Svetlana Zakharova, Ludmila Petrova and Alina Ivanova round out Russia’s top marathoners contending for Olympic berths. At press time, the final composition of Russia’s track and field squad was not known.
Irina Viner is the strict taskmaster and coach for the rhythmic gymnastics squad. And she has no doubts about her team’s chances. Her charges are widely expected to top the podium. This would seem bolstered by the recent eight-year ban from competition of Irina Deryugina, coach of the Ukrainian gymnast Anna Bessonova, who many see as the top challenger to the Russian duo. Deryugina was banned for allegedly acting “in such a way so as to influence the course or the result of the competitions in an improper way.”
Moving over to the men, they offer particularly high hopes in boxing. Alexei Tishchenko won gold in Athens and in the 2005 World Championships. He jumped up a weight division in 2006 – from flyweight to lightweight – and is hoping to gain gold there in Beijing. (He lost the title bout in this division in the 2007 Worlds.) But he is far from alone. Matvei Korobov, who is the middleweight world champion, seems to be another golden hope. And, at the 2007 Worlds, Russia won eight medals, had an athlete in six of the 11 title bouts, and three of them won.
Mikhail Mamiashvili, himself an Olympic champion and president of the Wrestling Federation, said confidently, “Our guys will ensure our basic gold reserves in the final days of the games.”
And of course there are the gymnasts, cyclists, fencers, weight-lifters, pentathletes, basketballers… None of whom are heading to the oven that will be Beijing to be tourists. Leonid Tyagachev, president of the Russian Olympic Committee cautiously estimated that, in the end, Russia should realistically win 32 gold medals, while some super-optimists have their eye on the number 40 (both, interestingly, are multiples of 8).
Meanwhile, it should be noted that, despite Vyacheslav Fetisov’s conclusion that this is the Olympics of the new Russian generation, there are in fact some “older generation” athletes in the Russian ranks, at least two of whom are serious medal contenders.
First, there is 2004 gold medalist in shooting, Mikhail Nestruyev, 39. He has attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the army, and one cannot but hope that he can reach the rank of Athletic General by recapturing gold in Beijing. Second is Irina Karavayeva (born 1975), who seized gold in Sydney in 2000, in the then new Olympic sport of trampoline. She has won five World titles and four European titles, but failed to repeat in 2004 in Athens. She consistently attempts routines with exceedingly high levels of difficulty, and has sworn she is going to take the gold in Beijing.
She and 500 other Russian athletes… RL
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