published in Eastern Economist #442, July 23, 2002
Olena
Zubrylova, Ukraine’s top biathlete, declared that she would not extend her
contract here. Instead, she would be joining Team Belarus.
Ukraine
has had a long history of losing its talent abroad. World champion jumper
Inessa Kravets complained in the mid-nineties about the Olympic Stadium in
Kyiv. It was so hard to find a free dumbell, she said, that if you want to
train you had to take your trainer piggyback and carry him around.
Since
independence, the disease seems to be spreading as facilities rust and
oligarchs spend the country’s assets on themselves and their relatives.
When
a sledder left in the middle of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, the reasons
were the same: lack of training facilities and resources—and lousy pay.
Like
most divorces, money seemed to be the biggest sore point.
A
one-time World Champion, Ms. Zubrylova is coached by her husband Roman and says
she self-finances most of her own training. She put in a very disappointing
performance at Salt Lake City. Apparently she was running a fever at the time.
Ms.
Zubrylova’s reasons are understandable: harsh official criticism, miserable
pay, the Federation’s tendency to put its efforts into younger athletes.
Meanwhile, Belarus has promised for starters to pay her a monthly stipend of US
$1,500.
It
wasn’t easy to get a word out sideways from any of the people involved in this
headline. Nor was there any damage control on anyone’s part [see RC#55]. The best DerzhKomSport, the State Sports Committee, could
come up with was “Well, we have a very promising team of male biathletes.”
As
a PR opportunity, this whole thing was a bust.
The
deputy chair of DerzhKomSport wasn’t taking calls. Nor would the Biathlon
Association or the Olympic Committee comment.
On
July 12, two sports officials agreed to answer some questions.
DerzhKomSport
Chair Maria Bulatova said that she “didn’t know anything.” That she first read
about Ms. Zubrylova’s decision in the newspapers. Well, “anything” is a bit of
a stretch.
“We
talked about this three times and the last time Olena said: ‘OK, I’ll stay but
I need some time to think.’ She didn’t say she would leave for Belarus and
switch citizenship.”
How
many times does a top athlete need to tell her bosses she’s not happy for them
to get the message?
“Ms.
Zubrylova’s not well,” Ms. Bulatova went on, “and we planned a whole
rehabilitation program for this summer, somewhere abroad.” The Committee had
recommended cutting back Ms. Zubrylova’s training schedule to give her some
time to improve her health.
OK.
What about the money angle?
The
president of the Biathlon Federation, Volodymyr Brynzak, said he hadn’t heard
any complaints from Ms. Zubrylova and thought the Federation had done
“everything possible” for her.
“We
had no conflicts,” said Mr. Brynzak. “She was my personal guest a number times
and one of my friends sponsored her for her Gold Medal with US $5,000.”
Not
to be outdone, Ms. Bulatova responded, “Our Committee spent more than a quarter
million hryvnia [under US $50,000] to prepare Olena for Salt Lake City. Her
salary here was Hr 1,000. At the Dynamo Society, she was paid about Hr 1,600 as
a Security Service Major, and the Federation gave her Hr 500.”
That
comes to Hr 3,100 or under US $600. It’s may be well above the official
national average, but nowadays secretaries at rich companies make that much in
Kyiv. Slim pickin’s for a sports star.
“People
don’t think about the fact that all our money goes towards our training. No
professional international coach will even look at you for less than US $5,000
a week,” said Natasha Medvedeva, the sister of tennis star Andriy Medvedev, on
a Gravis sports marathon July 13. Ms. Medvedeva is herself a tennis player who
was sidelined in 1998 after an injury.
Mr.
Brynzak also challenged Ms. Bulatova on this point. “Your committee hasn’t
financed any Federation activities,” he said angrily. “Ms. Zubrylova won the
world championship thanks to us. DerzhKomSport owes the Federation about US
$32,000.”
“Officially,
the Belarus NOC has not addressed us at all over this,” Ukraine’s National
Olympic Committee spokesman Ivan Bondarchuk told uaSport. “These decisions were
made without consulting us.”
Olena
Zybrulova herself, in an interview on Studio 1+1, looked on the verge of tears.
“Ukraine doesn’t appreciate what it has,” she said. “Other countries try to
make their teams stronger by buying ready-made stars.”
In
an AP report from Sydney back in 1999, Belarus President Alyaksandr Lukashenka
was quoted as saying, “Just produce results and you’ll be able to provide for
yourself for the rest of your life. I’ll buy you anything you neeed, be it
apartments, guns, boats, swimming trunks, even undershirts.”
His
offer has not fallen on deaf ears. Last year, Olympic Champion skier Svetlana
Nageikina moved to Minsk from Russia, as did biathletes Yelena Khrustaleva and
Yevgenia Kutsepalova. All of them performed at Salt Lake City on the Belarus
team. Now, says komanda.com, Russian biathlete Vladimir Drachiov, a many-time
World Champion and holder of the World Cup, may follow suit.
“Without
money, you can’t get anywhere in tennis or fencing,” says Serhhiy Holubnytskiy,
a fencing champion. “That’s a reality. Everything has to be paid for. The
problem here is that the government only responds to results. You have to get
to the top before they give you anything, and the minute you don’t have the
results, they stop supporting you.”
A
DerzhKomSport insider pooh-poohs this. Olena’s just trying to get a little
attention, he says. “There’s an Italian handball player and an American swimmer
who want to join Ukraine’s team.” We’ll believe that when we see it. •
–from the
notebooks of Pan O., with thanks to Yuriy and Bill.
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