FOOTBALL
The word "failure" for the scandal in the Russian Premier League is too soft. The definition of failure is much better. It all started just with the failures - in the defense of “Rostov”, when he scored Olic and anointed Dudu. The strange away victory of the army with an appendage in the form of a bruise under the eye of Kanyenda catalyzed the debriefing. The problem of contractual matches was overgrown with texture like a snowball. Past events - Judge Kulalaev, Akinfeev’s hand - went retroactively, and there were enough clues in the four remaining rounds. However, it makes no sense to point to abstract Vladivostok or Tom, as well as to an abstract president. Above all, the behavior of the RFU and the Premier League should be recognized as failure. “The presence of a number of problems relating not only to refereeing, but also to the overall functioning of the institutions participating in the competition” should be translated as “all turnout passwords are known, but the perpetrators will not be punished.” Which only adds to the sad conviction that much, if not all, is a foregone conclusion.
HOCKEY
The great goalkeeper in the past, and now the deputy Vladislav Tretyak, headed the Russian hockey in April, marking the arrival of the end of the era of Alexander Steblin, which had pretty much bothered everyone. Tretyak promised the revival of the national team as a showcase of domestic hockey, but he dragged on with the appointment of the head coach for more than three months. He repeated the need to create strong clubs, but dispersed the Professional Hockey League, which was created just by them. And concentrated all power in his hands. Arranged a catastrophe with the regulations of the championship of Russia, in which the rules changed almost every week, and with endless delays for Spartak. The victory at the 2007 World Cup, which Tretyak proclaimed his main goal, can make the president of the FHR a hero, despite all of the above. But the result of the national team in a single tournament is not able to turn the general mess in Russian hockey , created including by Tretyak, into an organized system.
TENNIS
One of the most ridiculous and unexpected defeats of this year happened in the Belgian city of Liege: the Russian women's tennis team lost to the Belgians in the first round of the Federation Cup . The efforts of Kim Kleysters and Justin Henin-Ardenne were the mistresses of the court enough to stop the best national team in the last two years. But the memory was not so much the defeat itself as its circumstances. After the refusal of Sharapova, Myskina and Kuznetsova to play for the national team in this match, the team captain Shamil Tarpishchev was forced to invite debutant Maria Kirilenko and for the first time since 2003 to call on the tired Nadezhda Petrova to help. As a result, both “rescuers” failed their matches, having managed to scandal as well.
VOLLEYBALL
The men's world championship in Japan, unlike its female counterpart, did not give us reason to be proud. It was a bit strange tournament, played out according to a strange formula, to which the Russian team brought a strange squad and played strange. Coach Zoran Gayich stated that the main goal was to prepare for the 2008 Olympics and abandoned veterans, but included almost all of Dynamo, including solid substitutes. The championship has developed so that out of almost a dozen matches, the first and last but one are decisive for Russia. Our team lost them, first to the Serbs, and then to the Poles. The last fight seemed to highlight our pros and cons as an X-ray: an organized unit, improved reception by Gayich and effective tempo attacks against tactical uniformity, uncertain actions in the replay and lack of a leader. The shortcomings so far outweighed: in Tokyo, we remained seventh. There is still time before Beijing - but not with Guyich, whose contract will end in February. It is unlikely to be extended.
BIATHLON
The doping scandal involving Olga Pyleva sounded loud in Olympic Turin. In an instant, the titled athlete said goodbye to the silver medal won in the individual race and her impeccable reputation. In her sample, the prohibited drug Carphedon was discovered, designed to quickly restore the body after heavy loads. Why did it happen? It is worth asking the doctors of the Olympic Committee, representatives of the Biathlon Union and the leaders of the anti-doping agency responsible for the “purity” of Russian sports. All of them still walk in white clothes. Who is to blame for this story: the manufacturer of the ill-fated Phenotropil tablets, the Shchelkovo Vitamin Plant, which did not indicate the content of carphedone in the instructions, the personal physician Nina Vinogradova Pyleva, who didn’t see the well-known doping in the drug, or the athlete who trusted in the environment? By and large, everyone is to blame. But first of all Olga herself suffered, having received a two-year disqualification in addition to all troubles.