Russia (bbabo.net), - Conversations like "successful" or "unsuccessful" subsided by themselves. At the 2022 Games, the Russian Olympic team pulled out 32 medals - 6 gold, 12 silver and 14 bronze. Before that, there was another record - the all-Union one: in 1988, the USSR team won 29 awards in Calgary.

Only Norwegians have more in Beijing: 37, of which 16 gold, 8 silver, 13 bronze. Scandinavians are great athletes. But let their compatriots Scandinavians write about the Norwegians. And we performed without an anthem and a flag, calling ourselves the team of the Russian Olympic Committee. Which, in my opinion, added to the fans even more love for their own, for their relatives.

Skier Alexander Bolshunov became the main hero of the Olympics for us. Three "gold", "silver", "bronze" - he collected the entire award set. Tall and broad-shouldered, he towered over the rest of his rivals. These are born once every hundred years. Or maybe they are not born. His ski step is wide, powerful, majestic. The real Russian Ilya Muromets on the world track. Not a king, they have kings, but our tsar-father, who was head and shoulders - in a simple and figurative sense - above his rivals.

He made himself like this, rejoicing, tormented, shedding sweat in grueling workouts. His hellish efforts definitely deserve not only sports medals and gift supercars from the oligarchs, but also the highest heroic awards of the Russian state, the symbol of which was Alexander the Great. Have you heard about Podyvot'e in the Sevsky district of the Bryansk region? Yes, and they could not hear about the village with a population of 523 people, where Bolshunov was born. It is these small, primordially Russian villages and cities that give us Olympic champions in a sport where we have to fight, work and train, and also endure.

Next to Bolshunov and figure skaters. Gold medals in the team championship and in the women's singles, where any of our three girls could win, were won by adult skill and severe suffering that befell the entire team almost from the beginning of the Olympics. Never before in the history of the Games have figure skaters been subjected to such skillfully organized persecution by international sports organizations.

In fact, the third "gold" - in pair skating - should or could be ours. But those who knew the laws of this sport understood that this was impossible. It is impossible to give three first places out of five to one country. This means undermining the interest of the world's main television companies - generous sponsors and owners. And, secondly, always with an equal performance, the judges unwittingly, subconsciously give a tiny fraction of personal sympathy to the hosts. They brought Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov to second place, preferring them to a magnificent Chinese sports couple. To win, you need not only a little more strength, luck, skill. You have to be like Alexander Bolshunov, not a head, at least half a head taller.

Previously, in other eras and times, they used to say: if we win hockey at the Olympics, everything will be forgiven us. Team Zhamnov remained second. And this is an indisputable success with the current selection of players. The second place and the second consecutive exit to the final - it looks like a victory. But this time the Finns, brought up in our Continental Hockey League, were not luckier, but stronger.

And if we talk about the Olympics, then it has already turned into the only vaccine invented in the world that defeated covid. Even if for a while, in one single multi-million city of Beijing, talk about a pandemic has become relevant only for a narrow group of people who are in an artificially and skillfully created bubble. The rest of the world, with each new day of these long and difficult pandemic Olympic Games, has not only forgotten about covid. The pandemic gradually receded for us, millions or even billions of fans, into the background, third plan.

The Chinese here were harsh. But how strict, fair, disciplined. Well, compare the numbers of members of the Olympic family infected with the virus at the beginning of the Games and at the end of them. They didn't make it to ten. I would like the city to remain free from those covid torments that the long-awaited newcomers could unwittingly bring.

Hosting this Olympics was even more risky than the Tokyo Summer Games. And the owners did it. With epidemiological safety it is clear. However, it was impossible to expect that the entire machine launched by the owners would spin at a given impeccable speed. But even this, let's forget about small blots, not even small blots, was succeeded. At the very least, the stands filled with organized groups of disciplined fans. Fantastic technology in sports arenas. And the arenas were ideally prepared to receive the Olympians. How did it work? It is not yet clear. Something else is clear: the organizers of the new Olympics need to adopt the Chinese experience as a blueprint.These Games will be remembered by others. The robots serving those accredited to the Games looked exotic only at first, then they got used to them, as if they had always existed. In general, we quickly get used to the good, forgetting that a highly raised bar is capable of lowering itself. The 2022 Olympics has become, like the World Economic Exhibition, a parade of innovative technologies. But it’s hard to imagine how such apparent lightness came about. Will Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo or the 2024 Summer Games in Paris be even better? After all, this is also like Bolt's record in the hundred meters. He is to be beaten. It's the same with technology records.

All point. The Olympic flame, also very original, went out. The Chinese can deserve a break.

And we are not. How much work remains to be done in order for the Russian national team, playing under its own flag, to achieve more gold medals at the 2026 Winter Games. Turn the fourth places, they were accumulated with a bust, into prize money. Raise new Bolshunovs and Valievs.

Personal opinion

The IOC figured out how to "help" Valieva

The head of the IOC, Thomas Bach, finally got worried about Kamila Valieva. I saw on TV from my hotel that after her unsuccessful performance in the free program, the figure skater’s circle greeted Camila so coldly that goosebumps ran down the president’s skin.

Suddenly, the head of the IOC felt that the whole situation with Valieva looked like a cruel treatment of a minor child, and promised that his organization would deal with all this. He also threatened, albeit tactfully, that as a result of the consideration of the case, the entire team of Valieva could be punished.

He did not spare Eteri Tutberidze either. He admitted the possibility that after studying everything that happened with Valieva, some sanctions could be imposed on the coach. He answered the question helpfully thrown at the press conference: yes, in principle, suspension from the Olympics is not excluded (probably in 2026. - Auth.).

It's embarrassing. Very embarrassing for the head of the IOC, a 68-year-old Olympic champion, a man who seemed to be balanced and reasonable. Bach grew up in difficult conditions and, thank him, got out of the bottom thanks to sports. Causes respect. But he clearly did not understand this artificially invented case of Valieva.

We have to repeat that the sample taken from Valieva on December 25 took a long time, almost a month and a half, to reach the Stockholm laboratory, whose employees died at once during the pandemic. All due dates have been violated. And the test result was made public after the completion of the team tournament already in Beijing. But that is not the case and never has been. Then why didn't we hear criticism of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which accredited this super-slow laboratory?

Bach worries about the underage Camila. If such care is already shown - in words - if it were not possible to cancel the interrogation of Valieva right on the eve of the speech, then at least reduce the time of the girl's online presence at it from seven hours to an hour, well, if necessary, to one and a half. Even in the harshest times of modern history, witnessed by a passing handful, minors were not treated like that.

Mokov's lamentations sound very insincere. Yes, perhaps the president of an organization that is going through hard times believes everything he said. Let's say. But then why was it so fervently caring for our Russian figure skater, to stun: if Valieva ascends to the podium, the results of the tournament will be considered preliminary. Where, at what Olympics has this been seen?

And to announce the preliminary results of team competitions that ended at the very beginning of the Olympiad looks simply absurd. Against these medals, they threatened to put an asterisk in the official Olympic protocols.

By the way, the leaders of a large and rich sports organization did not put things in order in their house either. The asterisk, which was supposed to appear opposite the "commander", was missing.

As there was no awarding of medals to our team with an accompanying solemn ceremony. How many far-fetched reasons have been thrown up for rumors, insinuations, even, I can’t stand this word, but it is from this series - provocations. And now almost tears are shed and goosebumps run.

I am a fan of both Anna Shcherbakova and the American genius Nathan Chen. Well, let's imagine for a minute (no, too long), for a moment that everything done with Kamila Valieva, with our team, with all of us, they tried to do with the US team, but with any other. It's impossible, it's unrealistic. But then why did the tragedy of the Russian woman Kamila Valieva become an Olympic reality in February 2022?

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