Rustam Minnikhanov takes part in meeting of the Presidential Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sport in Krasnodar

On May 23, Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov arrived on a working visit in Krasnodar to take part in a meeting of the Presidential Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sport chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Champion training centre.

Federal ministers and regional heads, who took part in the meeting,  discussed the training of the reserve and national sports teams.

"We do have a system of sports training for children and young people, which has evolved over decades. But modern trends in world sports, scientific innovations, new technologies and new challenges call for a major revision of existing methods and approaches," Putin said in his speech. "Our goal is to ensure the competitiveness of young athletes, of Russian sport as a whole, to maintain leading positions in many areas. First of all, we need to ensure continuity in the preparation of our athletic reserve: from extracurricular sports at schools to sports universities, from local teams to national teams," he continued.

According to Putin, additional education programmes and standards in sports should be harmoniously interlinked and subject to uniform requirements, in a single training process.

"We should also think about support for gifted children. A system of grants for promising athletes is already working in a number of regions.  I think it possible to implement this system at the federal level. This will help identify the best of the best and lead them to success. Funds for these purposes must be found, including – I have already talked about this more than once – by reducing the financing of professional sports, at least through the channels often used now to provide money, very large amounts and not always justified," the President said.

Putin stressed that competitions have always been and still are an integral part of sports education and identifying gifted young athletes.

He reminded that  in 2013 the decision was made to hold summer and winter nationwide Spartakiad games in Russia in events on the Olympic and Paralympic programmes. However, that decision was not completely carried out in practice even though we had everything that was required for that, he said.

Putin asked the Government to take responsibility for the preparation and holding of these Spartakiad games and work out the concept for preparing Russia’s sport reserves and coordinate it with the regions.

More information is available on the official portal of the Russian President kremlin.ru.