The Olympics: Passionless Games

• Share

"Never before have we experienced such dissatisfaction. Awaiting us is the job not only of investigating today's failures, but also of deciding on how to proceed in the future, how to restore what has been lost, how to achieve something new."

Breast beating is common enough in Izvestia. But what was the problem that aggravated the Russians this time? The disappointing showing of Soviet athletes at last month's Olympic Games. The final medal standings at the Mexico City games showed the U.S. with 45 gold, 28 silver and 34 bronze for a total of 107, compared with Russia's 29 gold, 32 silver, 30 bronze and a total of 91. Track and field was an utter debacle for the Russians, who managed to win only three events while the U.S. was winning 15. Every bit as embarrassing was the performance of the Soviet basketball team, which had been favored to capture the gold medal and wound up instead with the bronze, finishing behind the U.S. and Yugoslavia. The Russian players were "giants," reported Trud, the Soviet trade-union newspaper. "The coaches had everything." But the team played too many "passionless" games. "The players' sense of responsibility began to be blunted," and their "easy life" sapped their stamina.

That easy life is now on the way out. The Soviet sports program, formerly operated by a "voluntary public organization," will soon be under direct state control. Sergei Pavlov, ex-head of the Communist Youth League, has been appointed to run a new Committee for Physical Culture and Sports. He has been made a member of the Cabinet. And his orders are blunt. Says Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev: "International standards for our sports must be improved."