Medvedev demands sports officials resign over Russia’s poor showing at Vancouver Olympics

Medvedev demands resignations over Olympic flop

MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev demanded Monday that Russian sports officials step down over the country’s dismal performance at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Russia, a traditional winter sports powerhouse, won just 15 medals — with only three golds — in one of its worst performances. Officials said before the games that 30 medals and a top-three finish in the medal standings was the target.

Russia placed 11th for golds and sixth in the overall medal count.

In televised comments, Medvedev said if those responsible for preparing the athletes don’t resign then the decision will be made for them. He did not mention anyone by name.

“Those who bear the responsibility for Olympic preparations should carry that responsibility. It’s totally clear,” he said. “I think that the individuals responsible, or several of them, who answer for these preparations, should take the courageous decision to hand in their notice. If we don’t see such decisiveness, we will help them.”

In post-Soviet history, Russia had never previously finished outside the top five in the medal standings and only won fewer medals once before, in 2002 at Salt Lake City. Russia was the top nation at the 1994 Lillehammer Games, garnering 23 medals — 11 gold.

In nine Winter Olympics between 1956 and 1988, the Soviet Union failed to top the medal standings only twice, finishing runner-up on those occasions.

Medvedev lamented that Russia “has lost the old Soviet school … and we haven’t created our own school — despite the fact that the amount of money that is invested in sport is unprecedentedly high.”

The results leave Russia particularly red-faced as it takes the torch for the next Winter games in its Black Sea resort of Sochi in 2014.

“Without messing around, we need to start preparations for Sochi. But taking into account what happened in Vancouver, we need to completely change how we prepare our athletes,” Medvedev said.

In an interview with the newspaper Vremya Novostei, sports minister Vitaly Mutko blamed several factors for the Vancouver flop. New sports such as freestyle skiing that “no one takes seriously” in Russia have allowed other countries to race ahead, he said.

Mutko also claimed luck was not on the country’s side, saying in several disciplines Russia lacked “a shot here, a second or a point there,” singling out Evgeni Plushenko, who took silver behind Evan Lysacek of the United States in a closely fought men’s figure skating competition.

Doping bans had also deprived Russia of several leading medal contenders, he said.

Several Russian politicians have called for Mutko, who was appointed sports minister in May 2008, to step down.