All news
From Olympus of my own free will
Stanislav Pozdnyakov, the head of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), who held the post during the height of the crisis due to previous doping cases, has decided to resign amid a new crisis in relations with international sports organizations. Mr. Pozdnyakov, who in recent months has been remembered as the leader of the camp against an irreconcilable compromise with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which temporarily suspended the activities of the ROC, is leaving amid a sharp decline due to sanctions. The role and capabilities of his structures and the unexpectedly active work on reforming the industry became known to the Russian Minister of Sports Mikhail Degtyarev. According to Kommersant's sources, it is Mr. Degtyarev who will now be the sole leader of the industry, and as a result of the reforms, management will become "centralized", as in Soviet times.
The Russian Olympic Committee has issued a statement from its President Stanislav Pozdnyakov, in which he announced his resignation from this position. "The geopolitical challenges" "facing our country" "dictate the need to optimize and centralize the management of key areas of activity, including high-performance sport." At the same time, "its role is to ensure the most effective results through appropriate financial support, to create and practically implement new formats of high-level competitions, to create high-quality conditions for the development of strong and competitive future generations." athletes. The importance of caution is more important today than ever before."
Mr. Pozdnyakov noted that "now timely preconditions have been created, including economic ones, for a change of leader and team" in order to "further strengthen the Russian Olympic movement." The ROC Executive Committee must officially approve Stanislav Pozdnyakov's resignation, the meeting of which is scheduled for November 7. It will also set the date for the Olympic Conference on early presidential elections. Stanislav Pozdnyakov has so far promised that "the head of the organization, its executive committee and the bodies of the Russian Orthodox Church will continue to fulfill their duties in full."
Dmitry Chernyshenko, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister responsible for sports, said in a statement that he was grateful to Mr Pozdnyakov for his efforts and that he had “effectively led the Olympic team and represented Russia’s interests in the Olympic movement for many years.” “Today, global changes are taking place in world sports that require our strategic decisions,” he said. “President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has instructed to strengthen the sovereignty of national sports. Strengthening will be expressed in “strengthening the vertical management of the sports industry and integrating the aspirations and resources of all levels of government, enterprises, businesses and state institutions” and “the new leadership of the ROC must ensure the effectiveness of each participant in the industry.” “For the overall result.”
Stanislav Pozdnyakov, an experienced sabre fencer and four-time Olympic champion, headed the Russian Olympic Committee for six years.
And during this period, the structure and the person have undergone some very dramatic changes. Pozdnyakov took one of the key positions in Russian sports at the height of the previous crisis that the industry experienced. The doping incident eventually led to harsh sanctions from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which suspended the ROC and disqualified President Alexander Zhukov before the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
The role of the head of the national delegation participating in the Olympics without the right to use the national symbol went to the first vice-president Stanislav Poznyakov. And Russian and foreign sports officials believe that the IOC's restoration of the ROC, ignoring the doping cases in Pyeongchang of curler Alexander Krushelnitsky and bobsledder Irina Sergeeva, occurred mainly due to personal merits, which I admitted to having done. Mr. Pozdnyakov immediately "established good contacts" with the partners of the head sports organization, including its president Thomas Bach, who is also an Olympic champion in fencing.
In May, two months after the end of the Olympics, Mr. Pozdnyakov replaced Alexander Zhukov, despite the ongoing doping crisis (which allowed the Russian team to compete in two more Olympics as neutrals - in Tokyo in 2021) and in 2022. In Beijing, he maintained the image of a person ready to cooperate with international organizations. Under his leadership, the ROC actively participated in the implementation of the program recommended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and Stanislav Pozdnyakov himself became a member of the executive committee of the Association of National Olympic Committees and the IOC Olympic Program Committee.
But the new crisis, which arose for political reasons and due to very tough sanctions (some of which have not yet been lifted) imposed on Russian sports after the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, led to a sharp change in Mr. Pozdnyakov's position. attitude. His foreign colleagues. This became especially noticeable after the IOC suspended the activities of the ROC in the fall of 2023, which included the Olympic Councils of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. Stanislav Pozdnyakov had previously continued to use tough rhetoric, speaking about the "discriminatory" strategy of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The degree of toughness is now even higher. And on the eve of the Summer Olympic Games in Paris, it was brought to the limit.
The IOC has allowed Russian athletes to compete in individual events if they meet its criteria for participation. This approach has caused something of a rift within the Russian sports establishment as it debates whether to accept the terms.
And Stanislav Pozdnyakov has established himself as the leader of the camp of bureaucrats and politicians, who in the current situation excludes compromise on the issue of cooperation with the IOC and international sports federations and essentially calls for a boycott of the Olympics.
For example, Mr. Pozdnyakov described those who agreed to pass the tennis "filter" to obtain neutral status (they eventually formed the core of the modest 15-player Russian delegation) as a "team of foreign agents."
But many in the country's sports community made it clear on Tuesday that whatever Stanislav Pozdnyakov's feelings about the Olympics and sanctions, his departure came as a surprise to them. And that's not surprising, considering that just a few weeks ago he happily shared a plan to implement a project that is quite large-scale for the ROC: "Olympic Reserve - the Best for Children." A sports reserve for future participation in the Olympic Games.
Some of the executives who discussed Pozdnyakov's resignation expressed a thesis similar to that of Russian State Duma deputy Svetlana Zhurova, a famous speed skater, who said in an interview with TASS that the ROC "has nothing to do yet." It is clear what Ms. Zhurova means. Having lost its membership in the IOC and its "root" function as the agency responsible for the country's performance at the Olympic Games, the ROC has also lost its previous opportunities, primarily its financial function. According to SPARK, after the introduction of sanctions, several sponsors left, including the main sponsor Gazprom, and revenue in 2023 fell from 2.14 billion rubles compared to 2022. To 698 million rubles, that is, three times.
Kommersant's sources in the Russian sports leadership, who are well acquainted with the process of the decision to dismiss Stanislav Pozdnyakov, also cite other reasons for Stanislav Pozdnyakov's departure from the ROC. In his opinion, "it's all about Mikhail Degtyarev." Degtyarev, the former governor of Khabarovsk Krai, was appointed Minister of Sports of Russia in May. This position was previously held by Oleg Matytsin. Having taken this position, he soon showed a penchant for industrial reform.
Moreover, Mr. Degtyarev immediately “invaded” the “territory” that has always been considered primarily the area of responsibility of the Russian Orthodox Church.
He began the process of merging federations of "related" types. The first to go were gymnastics: artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline jumping, sport acrobatics, and aerobics. Currently, the process of combining water sports such as swimming, synchronized swimming, diving, and water polo is being completed. The giant structure that arose with the goal of "eliminating bureaucracy and strengthening the vertical" was entrusted to the leader of Russian business by Mikhail Degtyarev. Oleg Belozerov, the head of the Russian Gymnastics Federation, has already become the president of Russia. The co-owner of the gymnastics federation and Uralchem will be elected president of the Russian Swimming Federation at the end of October. " Candidate Dmitry Mazepin received the full support of the Minister of Sports (for more details, see this article). page).
Meanwhile, Kommersant’s sources claim that this is “just part of a larger reform designed to consolidate the management of the industry.”
He claims that Mikhail Degtyarev plans to “concentrate control” over it and “personally manage the Russian Orthodox Church together with the ministry.”
Sports manager Andrei Mitkov emphasized in a conversation with Kommersant that Mikhail Degtyarev’s desire is not surprising. He drew attention to the fact that in an interview with TASS in August, Mr. Degtyarev stated that, in his opinion, it was in vain that “Soviet experience” was somehow ignored in Russia. This meant that he played a key role in the development of sports in a state body – the USSR State Sports Committee. The National Olympic Committee, nominally a public and independent body, was in fact his department. “Either the chairman of the National Sports Committee was the chairman of the Olympic Committee, or his first deputy was the chairman of the Olympic Committee at some point,” Mikhail Degtyarev recalled. Andrei Mitkov is convinced that Mr. Degtyarev is trying to “centralize” sports power and recreate the “Soviet model,” which, as the expert emphasizes, “is truly effective.”
Another Kommersant source noted that the next forum "Russia - a Sports Power" will be held in Ufa on October 17-19, within the framework of which a meeting of the Sports Committee chaired by the Russian President will also be held. Mikhail Degtyarev has already warned that the discussion will mainly be about "the role of non-profit organizations in the development of sports." Such organizations include sports federations and the Russian Olympic Committee.