Russia's Olympic 'humiliation'

Does anyone have an opinion on the Russians?

American said:

Does anyone have an opinion on the Russians?

Click to expand...

I just think that without the staunch Commie bear funding and pushing Russian athletes to prove Communism is the best thing since sliced bread - their performance isn't as spectacular. I think it has to do with motivation, national pride, competitive spirit and a whole host of individual things that are intangible... and Russia's in a bit of a rut is all.

Ockham said:

I just think that without the staunch Commie bear funding and pushing Russian athletes to prove Communism is the best thing since sliced bread - their performance isn't as spectacular. I think it has to do with motivation, national pride, competitive spirit and a whole host of individual things that are

Click to expand...

Quite

The collapse of the economy in the 90's would have resulted in its athletic programs being gutted, followed by a large number of Russian migrating, the likely hood of Russia being able to maintain it's medal count would have been difficult.

Over the last 8 year's the Russian economy has improved but I doubt the grassroots athletic programs have not been restored, meaning that Sochi is not going to see a huge increase in the medal count for Russia

I think it's not so much the people as the cheating of the old Soviet system which trotted out professional athletes as amateurs while the West actually produced amateur athletes.

American said:

I think it's not so much the people as the cheating of the old Soviet system which trotted out professional athletes as amateurs while the West actually produced amateur athletes.

Click to expand...

I believe that most so called western Athletes are not publically funded, I am quite certain this is not true of say China. Whereas Russia or rather USSR used to fund the training in all disciplines of all it's entrants into International sporting events.
If such funding no longer happens then the failure of Russia to gain more medals inevitably falls to the failure to have either good enough trainers or good enough athletes or a mixture of both.

Russia has since the collapse of Communism not had any coherent laws in place, everything that is important is done to the wishes and desires of Putin and his Puppets, if a businessman tries to go against Putin he is either rapidly brought to heel or charged with some Tax crime and sentenced to an indeterminate time in prison.
Until such time as Russia adopts a set of laws that apply as equally as possible to all it's citizens, it will continue to fail in it's attempts to become a civilized society.

Medvedev as Putin's main puppet merely echoed his master when he blamed anyone other than those responsible for failure.