The promotion of a healthy lifestyle is one of the most important interests of the state. This is why every state needs to ensure the mass involvement of young people in sports. This lies within the ambit of state sports agencies like the Ministry of Sport, but such efforts are enhanced by many other governmental structures, including the social authorities, youth policy agencies and health authorities. Different public and private sports structures also have specific concerns here; in fact, their involvement can help more talented young athletes to be spotted, as well as improving the methods used for such identification. For example, to improve the sports infrastructure of rural schools alone, Russia plans to spend approximately $250 million before the end of 2017. In order to prioritize these efforts, basic tools are required to increase the percentage of the youth population engaged in physical culture and sports.

For that, Russia needs regulation not only in the sphere of sports, but also in education, social relations and the economy. The Russian government has issued special regulations in this area.

“On approval of the Concept of development of additional education of children”¹ is the first document that reflects on the fact that sports can be classified now as extended (as opposed to comprehensive) education for children or young people, and learning must be construed in line with both general developmental and professional sports training programmes.

The Presidential Decree “On the all-Russian sports complex ready for labour and defence” (GTO)² is an extension of the actual level of sports training in schools, and seeks to set high sporting standards to be met by each school student.

The “Strategy for the Development of Physical Culture and Sports in Russia until 2020”³ is a complex act that defines all the major aspects of the development of both mass and elite sports in the country. The programme allocates approximately 1 billion USD per year for the development of elite sport.

“A Set of Measures Aimed at the Development of Infrastructure for Physical Culture and Sport in All Educational Institutions”⁴ is a programme of economic measures for the development of sports infrastructure. It comprises another multi-million USD investment programme.

There are basic institutes that identify young talented athletes and provide them with initial training before they are transferred to special sports environment for further training. Of course, most of these processes start in general schools, where sports teachers identify young talent. However, school is not the only way to enter elite sport. Sports clubs and associations as well as extended state-funded sport sections are all entities that allow talented young athletes to be identified and transferred into the sport training system. Some sportsmen come to elite sports having been identified in high schools or universities, too. The overall objective is to identify talented youngsters and send them to special schools which young athletes attend in parallel with—and sometimes instead of—regular school. There are also special sports boarding schools where a comprehensive education and specialized sport education are integrated.

Those who enter this system (which is called the Sports Reserve system) and demonstrate outstanding achievements and wish to remain in sport can opt to embark on a state open special career path. On graduating from a specialized sporting school, an athlete is able to go to sporting high school (there are eighteen of them in total around Russia) which will open up a career path as a coach, academic or researcher in the field of sports science.

The above represents the institutional component of selection, the schools, clubs, sections etc. However, there is also an event component, which serves in some sports as an instrument for involving and selecting athletes, and for building a career. Annually, Russia hosts dozens of mega sports events and thousands of less major events. All of them are plotted on an integrated annual plan containing more than 10,000 events. Here are a few examples which involve millions of young athletes in open and fair competition:

• All-Russian “Presidential contests” school sports competitions (10 million participants yearly)

• All-Russian “Presidential sports games for youth” (5.5 million participants yearly)

• Mass Sporting Events for Youth:

– Leather Ball

– Mini-football School

– Pionerskaya Pravda ski race

– School Basketball Tournament⁵

The events cover every sport. Each national sports federation is committed to a programme for sport development up to 2020 with a set of measures and events focused on youth sport reserve training.

Infrastructural is one of the most difficult issues in sport at the moment, as infrastructure requires permanent funding derived from all three levels. Nevertheless, the state maintains ongoing calculations. The federal budget sets aside 30 million USD annually for sports infrastructure. The level of regional investment is much more difficult to evaluate, as it requires an analysis of all 85 regional budgets. However, even in the least developed regions of Russia, budget expenditure is in the region of one million USD per year. Finally, there are also municipal programmes for the development of sports infrastructure—not everywhere, of course, as there are over 20,000 municipalities in Russia and many of them are very small rural communities. However, such programmes exist in big cities, where mayor’s offices actively invest in sport infrastructure. One of the most striking examples of municipal involvement in sport infrastructure is in Sochi, the host of the Winter Olympics 2014. Since the Games, a number of Olympic facilities have been handed over to the city and are now widely exploited, especially by educational programmes aimed at young elite athletes. Thus the Shaiba Ice Arena is now a sports school for children and young people where young ice-hockey players are trained.

By means of all these measures, the Russian sports education system is able to identify young talented athletes and channel them into a special sports education system.

The primary goal is on the grassroots level and focuses on three types of SPORTING RESERVES: a POTENTIAL reserve which brings athletes together for possible inclusion in national teams; a CLOSEST reserve containing athletes who are ready to become members of national teams and can apply to do so; and an ACTIVE reserve of athletes who will form new Russian national teams in all sports.⁶

From comprehensive schools, sports clubs and sporting groups, young athletes come to sports schools. All young athletes usually start their training here. Those who perform particularly well proceed to the Sports Schools of Olympic Reserve (SSOR). Although there is no direct vertical movement here—any SSOR can accept any boy or girl “from the street” to join a normal training process, those who do well might be enrolled in a specialized (Secondary) School of Olympic Reserve. SSOR’s have a completely different training programmes named “Sports Skills Development Programmes”. And, finally, at the top of the sports training pyramid is the Centre for Sports Training. It is open for training and for work ( high-level athletes are given jobs there) and is thus for athletes who are members of teams competing at the national or regional level. It is the current Russian sports elite. The structure of this system is shown in figure 1.

Fig. 1. Sports Career

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Every tier in this pyramid is normally financed by the state, though there are many exceptions. For example, football clubs have private football schools, and one can also find private Centres for Sports Training in some regions.

This a comprehensive system of schools and centres comprised of more than 5000 organizations and catering for some 3.5 million athletes and 100,000 coaches. This system is currently being changed at the lowest level, with the Children and Youth Sports School which are currently administered by the Ministry of Sport becoming Sports Schools of Additional Education administered by the Ministry of Education. The structure of this system is shown on pic.2, 3.

Fig. 2. Sporting Reserve

Fig. 3. Sporting Reserve Governance

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It should be borne in mind that power in Russia (including sport governance) is divided into three levels: the federal, the regional, and the municipal. In addition, sport organizations enjoy an internationally recognized legal autonomy which affords many possibilities for private and public entities to be self-governed. To facilitate their management, the state establishes CSTs which, though mostly state-owned, act as private companies.

They directly administer the federal sports schools and national sports coaches (employing them, signing contracts, etc.).

The next tier are the head coaches of the teams representing the regions. They interact with the regional CST, which in turn interacts with the sports schools.

What are the key risks of this system?

1. Conservatism in the industry. Sometimes we experience resistance to change, in particular at the regional level (in the spheres of sport, in finance), as well as old stereotypes in managerial decision-making.

2. A lack of effective interaction between the federal and regional authorities, on the one hand, and the municipalities in the field of sports reserve training, on the other.

3. A lack of legal instruments for governing the sport career and sport education programmes at the regional level. The existing instruments are often based on old, and even void, regulations.

4. Inadequate staffing. Outdated educational processes in the sport reserve training system may not take professional standards into consideration or ongoing changes.

5. Inadequate logistics in sport, a slow turnover of routine work (which was highly developed in the past) at the federal, regional and municipal level.

To mitigate against these risks, the Russian government has launched a special project entitled “Innovative and Experimental Programmes in Sports”. Its key innovations in the spheres of education and career planning are the:

• Creation of a regional management model for sports reserve training and career planning on the basis of the cluster method

• Development and implementation of professional standards in sport

• Development and testing of public-private partnerships in sports reserve

training

If these innovations are successful, they will provide a harmonized sporting policy in all key fields. The expected results of those policies are the:

1. Formation of an independent sports branch, including the creation of a balanced legal and regulatory framework, adequate funding and logistics, effective methodological, scientific, medical and anti-doping provisions.

2. Formation of an effective system of sports reserve training with the optimal quantity of sports organizations and specialists to ensure high-quality sports training.

3. Training of a sufficient number of competitors—as a result of the ongoing programme of modernization in sport education and career planning for youth and elite athletes—to replenish Russia’s national teams and take on the challenge of competing on an increasingly global level.

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PESHIN Nikolay,"Russian Governmental Sport Policy", in:K. Georgiadis(ed.), Ethics,Education and Governance in the Olympic Movement, 57thInternational Session for Young Participants (Ancient Olympia,17/6-1/7/2017),International Olympic Academy, Athens, 2018, pp.53-68.

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