“Now we can say with confidence that the baggage of the old Soviet system of training athletes, which Kazakhstan performed at the previous Olympics, is over”, – sports commentator Albert Akhmetov said in an article for CABAR.asia.
Shock. Pain. Perplexity. Analysis. Adoption. “It had to happen sooner or later.” Only the lazy one did not speak on social networks or from the high tribunes about the record low results of the Kazakhstan national team at the last Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The lockdown, which began in 2020, seemed to have broken the entire system of training Kazakh athletes for the Olympic Games, and in 2021 we saw the Kazakhstan national team that failed to win not just gold, but even silver. Eight bronze medals and 88th place in the team medal standings in Tokyo became a cold shower for Kazakhstanis, the problems of sports development in Kazakhstan began to surface one after another.
Old fans remember the first Summer Olympics for the Kazakhstan national team as a separate team. In Atlanta, Kazakhstani athletes won 11 medals in five sports, three of which were won by boxer Vasily Zhirov, Greco-Roman wrestler Yuri Melnichenko and pentathlete Alexander Parygin. Since then, none of the Kazakhstanis have been able to achieve the same results in Greco-Roman wrestling and modern pentathlon. Kazakhstanis no longer dream of medals in bullet shooting, as it was in Atlanta-1996.
The main problem is that, having great opportunities for the development of many sports, at the Summer Olympics, Kazakhstani sports functionaries traditionally like to rely only on martial arts and weightlifting. For a long time, huge funds were invested in these sports from both the national budget and quasi-state, private companies, gyms were built, athletes received everything they need - equipment, modern equipment, trips to any training camp and competition, that is, full of blank cheque.
In 2013 and 2014, Kazakhstan held the world championships in boxing and weightlifting, the home team performed just brilliantly (the first team place in the world boxing championship and the fourth team place in the weightlifting world championship). Coincidence or not, but it was in these sports that the loudest scandals that thundered all over the world occurred a little later. The result of this whole story is that in weightlifting, Kazakhstan can still send only two athletes to the Olympics, and talented boxers from Kazakhstan are becoming a bargaining chip in the hands of judges at tournaments held by AIBA (the leaders of the organization have a dark past, now the organization is not recognized by the IOC, but organizes world championships).
Will foreign countries help us?
An interesting fact: in just five years, from 2007 to 2012, four Chinese athletes and 12 Russian athletes moved to Kazakhstan. They play for Kazakhstan at the Olympics and World Championships.
Among the Olympic medalists, about 15% are athletes who came to Kazakhstan from other countries in order to win these same medals. Of course, for the country's image and reports, it is honorable and pleasant to see the highest possible number in the “medals” column. Moreover, there are examples when legionnaires really go to Kazakhstan to live and work here, set an example for local athletes and do not dream of returning to their historical homeland (like, for example, biathlete Elena Khrustaleva or wrestler Nurislam Sanaev). But if the practice of attracting and buying legionnaires is constant in a particular sport, the younger generation may simply be disappointed, knowing that they will still give way to a former foreigner in the national team.
Does Kazakhstan have its own real sports stars?
In Kazakhstan, there is sport as a physical activity, but there are no heroes for whom the whole country would root for. There are no bright names with which the domestic sport of high achievements would be associated. This is confirmed by the results of the study. To the question of which of the athletes you are rooting for, a large spread and a low overall proportion of overlapping answers were obtained.
In terms of the frequency of references, only Serik Sapiev stand out (on average, every third supports him) and Gennady Golovkin (every fifth, respectively). Despite the fact that Serik Sapiev completed his sports career, the name of this outstanding athlete has firmly settled in the memory of Kazakhstanis. Supporters are an integral part of the sports industry. Athletes and fans just need each other. And the loss of one component jeopardizes the existence of the sports industry as a whole.
It is with regret to admit that the world sports stars from among Kazakhstanis can be counted on one hand. Now it is, perhaps, only the professional boxer Gennady Golovkin, in the 2000s there was a cyclist Alexander Vinokurov (and when he won gold at the 2012 Olympics, the British press called him “Nobody from the country of Nowhere”). Although no, there is still PR with a minus sign: at various anti-doping seminars, the first thing they show is a photo of Kazakhstani weightlifter Ilya Ilyin, who lost two Olympic gold medals after rechecking doping samples taken at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
Why it happens? Because amateur boxing, weightlifting and wrestling, which are in the first place in Kazakhstan, are not among the popular sports in Europe and the United States. But in swimming and athletics, which are followed by the whole world, Kazakhstan does not have many strong athletes. In the entire history of independent Kazakhstan, medals at the Olympics in these sports were won only by the most talented, unique ones, like Dmitry Balandin, Olga Shishigina, Dmitry Karpov, Olga Rypakova. Special conditions are created for them, training according to special individual programs, including abroad, although it is quite possible to engage in medal-intensive sports, such as swimming and athletics, without leaving Kazakhstan. But training abroad before the pandemic was a habit even for boxers: it is known that Vasily Levit and Daniyar Eleusinov prepared in the United States before the 2016 Games in Rio under special programs, this was funded from extrabudgetary funds.
What compels them to seek training abroad? First of all, the lag of domestic sports medicine and science from the world, the lack of a strong reserve, and therefore strong rivals, within the national team.
To effectively train an athlete, it is also necessary to improve the qualifications not only of athletes, but also of all those who provide their training, including our doctors and coaches. High-quality medical care for athletes, the safety of their health is one of the main priorities of the NOC, therefore complex scientific groups work with the national teams, which include nutrition specialists, psychologists and doctors.
However, unpleasant situations happen, and not only in Olympic sports (in January of this year, skier Alexander Kolyadin, champion of the 2018 Winter Paralympic Games, passed a positive test). And in youth teams, situations are not uncommon when a coach is both a nutritionist, a massage therapist, and a psychologist, and does not have time to keep track of everything. To close the shortage of personnel, it would be necessary to invest in the development and training of personnel in sports medicine and sports nutrition, improve the qualifications of local coaches, and allocate special staffing units for specialists. Then, perhaps, no lockdowns would prevent the leaders of national teams of all ages from preparing at home, without leaving abroad, and in the future, when all borders are fully open, there would be no need to spend money on trips.
A separate problem is the lack of mass character. National teams sometimes have nowhere to take a reserve, the leaders of the teams do not feel the competition from young people and, again, they need to go abroad: only by training with strong partners, you can improve your level and shoot at the starts. In Kazakhstan, local executive bodies are responsible for mass sports; this sector is supervised by the Ministry of Culture and Sports. A new program for the development of mass participation was launched only in 2021, opening free sections for children through per capita funding. Earlier, at the initial stage, parents had to pay for training and equipment, since not everyone can get into specialized sports schools, where there is full support.
Where does the problem begin?
The author of these lines ordered a poll among Kazakhstanis on the topic of sports and the results, frankly, are not very good.
Sports and physical education are not only about a healthy lifestyle and hours spent in the gym. Sport as a social phenomenon solves a complex problem for the development of the state and a healthy society as a whole.
First, playing sports in modern society determines the social status and lifestyle of a person.
Second, sport has a unifying force that fosters a sense of patriotism and national identity. For example, nothing unites people like the achievements of athletes at the Olympic Games. However, the question arises, do we know the heroes of the Olympics, are there favorites among them, do we follow their performances, etc.?
In total, 4,529 people aged 18 and over were interviewed. Statistical error - 4% (within the acceptable 5% sampling error). The sample population represents the gender, age and regional structure of the general population (population of the Republic of Kazakhstan 18 years and older).
According to the results of the study, almost two-thirds of the Kazakhs surveyed are actively involved in sports.
Some of them - several sports, most often football or volleyball. The average sports fan is a man (56%), from 18 to 30 years old (66.1%), a Kazakh (79.4%), a certified specialist (62.9%), employed in the economy (62.6%), with low income (74.6%), southerners (24.2%). As a rule, women do not go in for sports (51.1%), 50 years and older (55.1%), unemployed in the economy, low-income categories.
As sociological statistics show, more than three quarters of Kazakhstanis are TV viewers of sports programs and news. Thus, Kazakhstanis are 1.3 times more likely to watch sports on TV than do it. In particular, they watch and play: football - respectively 30.8% versus 18.9% (the gap in indicators is 1.6 times); boxing - respectively 23.6% versus 6% (the gap in indicators is 3.9 times). Least of all TV viewers watch national sports (3.8%), and 2.6% are engaged in them.
Low TV views and lack of demand for national sports are the result of poor publicity and funding. At this rate, national sports risk becoming a historical relic on their territory. Although the development of national sports today is an integral part of the vital issue of national-state building for Kazakhstan.
As part of the survey, the main criteria for involvement in sports were determined - sports employment, awareness of sports events, knowledge of athletes and attitude to the Olympics. The research material does not find significant empirical confirmation of the high involvement of Kazakhstanis in the sports ecosystem. Despite the propaganda of mass sports and active sports, the concept and social phenomenon of sport as a culture and worldview, there is something that has not yet taken root in the public consciousness and has not acquired a decisive argument in the practice of the sports industry. Sport today has an individualized character (hence the lack of great success among the national teams of Kazakhstan in team sports), isolated from the complex concept of sports culture.
Given the low awareness of athletes, the lack of a pronounced attitude towards the Olympics and the predominance of passive sports (mainly TV viewing), it is difficult to call Kazakhstanis a sports people. Understanding the strategic importance of the integrating and stabilizing role of sport in society (sport is one of the best ways to relieve social tension) should become the basis of state policy. Recognition of the idea of sport as a culture and worldview can initiate stable positive changes not only in the sports industry, but also in society as a whole.
The deputies also speak about the deplorable situation with the development of mass sports. Mazhilisman Yerlan Sairov said that “children's and youth schools today are in a deplorable material and technical condition, there are no competitions among teenagers in the country, there is no system of support for children's and youth sports. In large sports complexes of Kazakhstan, tariffs are overstated, in this regard, children and adolescents do not have the opportunity to visit them and play sports". To this we add the low qualifications of physical education teachers to complete the picture.
Another nuance, which is being discussed more and more loudly at different levels, is that a lot of public money is spent on financing professional football clubs. It's no joke - 11 out of 12 teams of the Kazakhstan Premier League are fully or more than half financed from local budgets (except for Almaty “Kairat”, whose budget in the championship 2020 consisted of only 16% of state money).
It is clear that foreign legionnaires play in football teams, which cost a lot of money. And the budget of each individual KPL club is quite comparable to the money that the NOC receives from the state for the development of the entire elite sport.
For example, in 2020, the total budget of KPL clubs amounted to 27.3 billion tenge (63.3 million US dollars), including FC "Astana" financed 890 million tenge (2 million US dollars), and "Ordabasy" will cost taxpayers 3 billion tenge (6.9 million US dollars) in 2021. The NOC in the same 2020 received from the state more than 10 billion tenge (23 million US dollars). According to deputy Sairov, in 2021, 47 billion 242 million 172 thousand tenge (109.6 million US dollars) were allocated for higher sports, and only 2 billion 081 million tenge (4.8 million US dollars) for the development of mass sports. And the NOC Secretary General Andrei Kryukov explained that taking into account the funds allocated for sports by local budgets, the funding of the national budget of national teams is only 6% of the funds spent on sports, which can be compared with the funding of large professional football clubs.
With such expenditures on professional football clubs, one would expect great victories from Kazakhstani teams, but in the end, only Astana more or less regularly makes it to the group stages of Eurocups, and the country's national football team played for the first and only time in the final stage of the World Cup back in 1999, and even then at the youth world championship. For comparison, the number of Olympic medals and awards at the World Championships at different ages in Olympic sports is in the tens, if not hundreds. Today, the country has finally begun to cut the budgets of football clubs supported by state funds, but this work is still far from completion.
Everything is relative
If at the Summer Olympic Games Kazakhstan won 72 medals during its independence, then at the Winter Olympic Games Kazakhstan has only 8 medals, and 4 of them were won for the country by the famous skier, world star Vladimir Smirnov. On his account the first and only gold of the Winter Olympics in the independent history of the country. Mass character in winter sports is far from perfect. If the state even invests in summer sports, then winter sports are developed at the expense of enthusiasts. Therefore, today it is difficult to imagine whether Kazakhstan's short track team would become one of the leaders in the World Cup, if it were not for the work and faith in the overall success of head coach Madigali Karsybekov. Kazakhstani freestyle mogulists would not be the leading team in the world if it were not for coaches Viktor Lemeshko and Elena Kruglykhina. And at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Kazakhstan would have been left without medals if Oksana Ten had not taken away the golden boy Denis (who died tragically in 2018) to foreign figure skating coaches.
As for the creation of infrastructure for winter sports in Kazakhstan, ice arenas, jumps, freestyle tracks and other facilities appeared so quickly thanks to the holding of major international competitions in the country. Whoever said that a significant contribution to this was made by the then Akim of Almaty Akhmetzhan Yesimov and the Rector of the Kazakh Academy of Sports and Tourism Kairat Zakiryanov. It was they who convinced the country's leadership, international federations and committees of the need to hold the Asian Winter Games in Kazakhstan (they were held in 2011 in Almaty and Astana) and the Winter Universiade (successfully held in Almaty in 2017). Also, with the direct participation of Yesimov, Almaty was a candidate city for the Winter Olympics in 2022 (only 4 votes separated the metropolis from the status of the host of the Games).
Moreover, it must be admitted that without the largest world and regional competitions in Almaty, the country would not have developed such sports as curling, ski acrobatics so quickly, athletes performing in ski jumping would not have received new sports facilities, cross-country skiing and biathlon. And the stages of the World Cups in Nordic Combined, Ski Jumping, Freestyle Mogul and Acrobatics, as well as the World Freestyle Championship in Almaty would not have taken place if it were not for the Asian Games and the Universiade. In society, they say that holding sports competitions requires too much money from the state, especially taking into account the corruption component - the budget of the Asian Games was 233.5 billion tenge (1.65 billion US dollars at the rate of 2011), and the budget of the Universiade was over 100 billion tenge (232 million US dollars), but people forget that without the need to hold events, winter sports would hardly have received so much modern sports infrastructure at one moment.
Of course, in the context of the current crisis, pandemic, inflation and the sharp devaluations of the national currency that took place in 2014-2015, the idea of holding the Winter Olympics in 2030 looks like a fantasy, but it may turn out that for the development of winter sports in 20 years, it may be necessary to accept the main starts of the four-year period in Kazakhstan. In addition, holding international competitions in ours allows you to get acquainted with judges, international federations, so that they know what Kazakhstan is, and do not prejudice athletes during major competitions.
Black Pages
With the development of technology and the strengthening of the role of social networks, the number of scandals related to domestic sports has become more frequent. It is clear that such unpleasant situations as the deprivation of Olympic medals for weightlifters and wrestlers after the revision of doping samples taken at the 2008 and 2012 Games could not but cause a surge of negativity in society. But now the domestic media are sometimes actively involved in heating up unnecessary scandals, without even understanding the situation.
Despite the problems and corruption risks, today a lot of money is spinning in Kazakhstani sports, moreover, there is a large social program for athletes at the state level in the country. Any athlete from the national team studies somewhere, gets a higher education, another thing is that not everyone finishes their studies, someone leaves. Therefore, the talk that athletes were used and sent to their own devices after the end of their careers can be considered unfounded. Yes, athletes spend half their lives on training, competitions, sometimes they risk their health, but for this they can receive not only honor and respect from their compatriots, but also good bonuses. The state pays 250 thousand dollars for Olympic, Paralympic or Deaflympic gold alone, athletes who won places in the Top 5 at these competitions also receive awards, their personal coaches and mentors of the national teams are not ignored. In addition, once in the regional, national teams by age, athletes are already provided with uniforms and clothing, transport, and food.
When big money is at stake, a person's true face, his ethical standards are revealed. Yes, a person inside and out can know anti-doping rules, be educated, but the decision - to cheat, or to be honest, each athlete, coach, head of a sports school makes himself. The same goes for the decision to make a scandal, this is also the reason for the unpleasant incidents. The formation of values is no longer only a question of coaches or government agencies, but also of parents, schools, universities, and media information policy.
Conclusion
Now we can say with confidence that the baggage of the old Soviet system of training athletes, on which Kazakhstan traveled at the previous Olympics, is over. Due to the pandemic and the redistribution of government spending, the country had to abandon the practice of naturalizing foreign athletes. Left alone, cooking in its own juice, Kazakhstani sports have to get used to the new reality, where in summer sports not only world leaders, but also neighboring Uzbekistan have gone far ahead. It is always difficult to be in the role of catch-up, but it is one thing when in Rio we lagged behind our southern neighbors by 1 gold and 1 position in the table of ranks, and in Tokyo - by 51st place.
At the same time, it must be admitted that the land of Kazakhstan has always been rich in talents. And there are talented athletes in the country now, and will appear in the future. What is the bright victory of the Kazakhstani breaker at the World Championship? At the 2024 Olympics, breaking will be one of the new types in the Games program, and now the country has some chances for a medal.
In recent years, the state has taken many steps towards the development of domestic sports and the support of talents. A system of financing sports has been introduced through the ranking of sports depending on the results, an increase in the role of NOCs, NPCs and Federations in the preparation of national teams, free sections have been opened and it has been promised to improve the qualifications of coaches. It is especially important that with the arrival of the patron Kairat Boranbayev in the Paralympic sport, para-athletes received unlimited opportunities for self-improvement and already from the 3rd Paralympics in a row they bring medals, inspiring Kazakhstanis to feats. And in Olympic sports there is hope that not only in boxing, but also in sports, artistic gymnastics, track cycling, rowing, archery, table tennis, our country will have new stars at the upcoming Games. The main thing is that the system invented on paper really works, and does not stumble over manifestations of corruption and the desire of some functionaries to push their protégés into the national teams. There will be fair selection, objective refereeing in domestic competitions, a clear understanding of anti-doping rules from childhood, developed modern sports medicine and nutritional science, psychological service, modern facilities and equipment - there will be great victories to the delight of all Kazakhstanis, who, rooting for their compatriots, will themselves become more actively involved in sports!