Today, June 4, in Gorki (Moscow region) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev held a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the "Russian Olympians Foundation", which led to it’s creation in 2005. OLYMPIANS.RU publishes uncut introductory remarks from Dmitry Medvedev.
"Colleagues, good afternoon! I cordially greet you all - all the participants and our partners of «The Russian Olympians Foundation». Why are we meeting, and in this format - because this year we have an anniversary, we have worked for 10 years with you, in fact, in July it will be 10 years since the formation of the Fund. Time to take count of cooperation between the state and business representatives in the field of sport.
But first of all I want to sincerely thank you. We seldom thank business, and it’s wrong. You really did a lot so that sport could flourish in our country, to achieve the results that we are all proud of, including, of course, the Olympic Games in Sochi. Largely thanks to you, in the sphere of elite sports, medals of the highest esteem were conquered - it is necessary to speak openly and frankly, there is nothing to be shy about. I wanted to specially thank you all for all of this, especially since the Fund's work was carried out under different conditions. Our year from year is different. There were simple periods, relatively, anyway, when we made decisions, everything went quite smooth. Then came 2008, 2009, which proved to be very complicated. And now is far from being the easiest period. Nevertheless, we managed to raise the necessary resources in order to achieve these results.
Over the years, the Fund has helped many athletes, coaches, experts, children who attend sports schools of Olympic reserve, and Olympic veterans. I will remind, that we launched these programs one after the other: first, we had less ambitious goals, then they become more ambitious. We implemented 57 charitable programs in which 15 thousand grants were disbursed - a total of 8 billion rubles, a lot of money, really. All the champions and winners of the Olympic Games in Beijing and Vancouver and almost all the winners of the Olympic Games in London were grant recipients of the Fund. And, of course, once again I would like to emphasize, the Fund has made a huge contribution to the Olympic Games in Sochi: about 80 percent of our winners received grants from the Fund.
Ahead of us, are the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and the Olympics in 2018 in Pyeongchang. Programs for prize payouts are also prepared, so let's discuss how to spend them, how to support promising young athletes, and how to help those who are retired. Naturally, this does not mean that the state is withdrawing from this area, of course not. We, as you know, spend very heavily on government support for elite sports. Not too long ago, the President also held a Council on this issue. So, this work will continue, but it does not detract from all that has been done by you.
In any case, again on behalf of the government, I want to say thank you. "
"Colleagues, good afternoon! I cordially greet you all - all the participants and our partners of «The Russian Olympians Foundation». Why are we meeting, and in this format - because this year we have an anniversary, we have worked for 10 years with you, in fact, in July it will be 10 years since the formation of the Fund. Time to take count of cooperation between the state and business representatives in the field of sport.
But first of all I want to sincerely thank you. We seldom thank business, and it’s wrong. You really did a lot so that sport could flourish in our country, to achieve the results that we are all proud of, including, of course, the Olympic Games in Sochi. Largely thanks to you, in the sphere of elite sports, medals of the highest esteem were conquered - it is necessary to speak openly and frankly, there is nothing to be shy about. I wanted to specially thank you all for all of this, especially since the Fund's work was carried out under different conditions. Our year from year is different. There were simple periods, relatively, anyway, when we made decisions, everything went quite smooth. Then came 2008, 2009, which proved to be very complicated. And now is far from being the easiest period. Nevertheless, we managed to raise the necessary resources in order to achieve these results.
Over the years, the Fund has helped many athletes, coaches, experts, children who attend sports schools of Olympic reserve, and Olympic veterans. I will remind, that we launched these programs one after the other: first, we had less ambitious goals, then they become more ambitious. We implemented 57 charitable programs in which 15 thousand grants were disbursed - a total of 8 billion rubles, a lot of money, really. All the champions and winners of the Olympic Games in Beijing and Vancouver and almost all the winners of the Olympic Games in London were grant recipients of the Fund. And, of course, once again I would like to emphasize, the Fund has made a huge contribution to the Olympic Games in Sochi: about 80 percent of our winners received grants from the Fund.
Ahead of us, are the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and the Olympics in 2018 in Pyeongchang. Programs for prize payouts are also prepared, so let's discuss how to spend them, how to support promising young athletes, and how to help those who are retired. Naturally, this does not mean that the state is withdrawing from this area, of course not. We, as you know, spend very heavily on government support for elite sports. Not too long ago, the President also held a Council on this issue. So, this work will continue, but it does not detract from all that has been done by you.
In any case, again on behalf of the government, I want to say thank you. "
