In the Ice Palace "Alau", the only high-speed skating rink in Kazakhstan, they promised to solve the problems of the national short track team. The object reacted to the scandalous post of the flag bearer of Kazakhstan at the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing Abzal Azhgaliev and his interview. Askhat Mukashev, director of the sports arena, spoke to bbabo.net and responded to complaints about the poor quality of the ice, unacceptable conditions for training and the absence of a locker room. For his part, he explained what prevented the creation of everything necessary for the training of athletes.

- Tell us about the training of short trackers, how regularly do they take place?

- Training camps of national teams in speed skating and short track are held on the basis of an agreement with the National Olympic Committee in accordance with incoming applications. In general, national teams train all year round with breaks for maintenance work at the facility or for team trips to other regions of the country or the world. We try to provide technical events during the summer period in order to take into account the interests of visitors and users.

So far, all the stated requirements have been met in full. The short track team itself first began its training at the Alau base only in 2018. Well, this year we were able to organize, according to the requirements of the national team, the conditions for preparing for the games in Beijing. For one month, we closed the facility for the needs of any visitors in the interests of the national team.

Today, cooperation is going on as usual, in this matter we start from the requests of the NOC and try to satisfy them as much as possible. Let's say more, we are ready to support the national team in matters of logistics, as we do in the case of children's sports schools in the city, but we have not received such requests, - said Mukashev.

Who pays for their training?

- National Olympic Committee.

How are training times determined?

- In their applications, users indicate the acceptable time for classes, often applicants indicate the same time. Of course, this is due to the peculiarities of the training process, the rhythm of children and their parents, depending on the training schedule or the optimal time for loading each age category. The maximum demand is in the morning and afternoon, that is, the most demanded time is from 07:00 to 12:00 and from 14:00 to 19:00.

Once again, the issue of delimiting time between users is the most difficult, because, on the one hand, children (together in urban and private schools this is more than 1000 children), on the other hand, professional athletes (national teams), and on the third hand, citizens and guests of the city.

"Alau" in this sense is a very popular place for young people. Here, at affordable prices, you can use bbabo.net time with benefit, since the opening of mass skating has become a very popular type of family and youth leisure. On weekends, mass skating is attended by at least 5,000 people.

In any case, we have found mutually acceptable solutions so far, and we are sure that even now there is no difficulty in this. As Abzal Azhgaliyev said, it is necessary to carry out work here, meet and discuss, I think everyone is interested in this.

- Is it true that even during their preparation there were moments when mass skating interfered with the athletes?

- In general, when planning the schedule of mass skating, of course, the training schedule of children, athletes, and even more so national teams, is taken into account. But I do not rule out that slips can sometimes occur, after all, the load on the object is very high, it is popular in the city and in the specialized sports environment. For our part, we have already done internal work and hope that mass skating will no longer bring discomfort to the training process of the national team.

- Abzal was outraged by the infrastructure, spoke about the lack of a dressing room for the team. Are there such problems on the rink?

- This also follows from the high loading of the facility. At the moment, "Alau" is loaded to one hundred percent of its capabilities. The facility has 12 changing rooms. In this matter, we try to be flexible and distribute dressing rooms among all users of the services.

- What do you think our athletes lack?

- Today, the issues of sports and physical culture are widely discussed in society and are supported as one of the priority areas of state policy. I believe that the necessary foundation has been laid - a sports infrastructure has been created in the country, significant funding has been provided and is being provided to sports. However, we see that sports facilities, public sports schools, professional clubs, private sports schools - all these are differentities that have city or republican status, and often different goals and KPIs.

As noted above, sports need specialists who can connect everything, because the issue is not in some single sports complex and one sport, it is deeper.It is necessary to establish a system of interaction that will meet the national interests of all groups and categories of citizens - children, professional athletes, amateur athletes.

For our part, we are interested and ready to provide a platform for developing a constructive solution to this issue, and, most importantly, we are conducting systematic work in this direction! Solving the issue with the national short track team will be another step in this direction.

"I was told to delete the post." Abzal Azhgaliev frankly about stereotypes and problems of Olympians

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