Top readiness
The final preparation stage has come for the Ukrainian athletes who will be competing in the 29th Summer Olympic Games, which will take place in Beijing, China, on Aug. 8-24, 2008. Unlike the administrative problems, which have been more or less successfully resolved, the most important issue — acquiring the proper sports equipment — remains unsolved. According to Ukrainian Olympic Committee chairman Serhii Bubka, in order to win at the Olympics our athletes need at least one year of training on the equipment that will be available in Beijing. At the moment, the members of the Ukrainian National Team are using old equipment, and there isn’t enough money to purchase new equipment because the 2008 state budget has allocated only 150 million hryvnias for this purpose. Experts claim that these funds can buy only about 75 percent of the necessary sports equipment. Part of the funds will finance the athletes and their coaches’ room and board, transportation costs, and outfitting.
“The problem of underfinancing of the preparations for the Olympic Games has never been so critical,” Bubka said. “Early this year, owing to certain peculiarities of the current budgeting processes in Ukraine, the Ministry of Family, Youth, and Sports was unable to start financing the Olympic movement on time. To avoid hampering the preparation process, the National Olympic Committee allocated approximately 4.5 million hryvnias from its own budget to the sports federations. The current state of the sports infrastructure is no less worrying. Today sports training centers have to pay the property tax, which undermines their financial situation.”
In spite of these problems Minister Yuri Pavlenko is convinced that the Ukrainian National Team will be able to represent Ukraine at the Beijing Olympics with dignity. He claims that our athletes have obtained 174 Olympic licenses in 21 kinds of sports. Since only six months are left before the start of the games, Ukrainians will be able to win at least 40 or 50 more licenses in such sports as judo, fencing, rowing, track and field events, and others. Experts predict that the Ukrainian Olympic Team will include a total of 220 athletes, who will be able to win 13 medals, one or two of which will be gold. The most promising athletes are the cyclists, track and field athletes, gymnasts, and wrestlers, since these kinds of sports are developed most consistently and have shown high results.
Ukraine’s National Olympic Committee has just approved the designs of the uniforms and full civilian clothing for our national team. The location of the Ukrainian team’s accommodations in the Olympic Village, the team’s air transportation to China, and local transportation during the games have also been decided. These issues are no less important than the athletes’ training. As Olympic champion wrestler Iryna Merleni said, the Ukrainian Olympic Team’s success depends on them.
