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Worlds are just warm-up for 2008, says China
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-11-15 11:01
The uproar over Nemov's marks brought the Olympic competition to a standstill
as an angry crowd booed and jeered the judges for 10 minutes. The controversy
contributed to the International Gymnastics Federation's (FIG) decision to
introduce reforms after Melbourne.
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Nemov singals angry
crowd to calm down in Athens
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The Olympic failure also cost long-serving Russian gymnastics chief Leonid
Arkayev his job.
Arkayev, who was also Russia's men's and women's head coach, had ruled the
sport with an iron fist for three decades, single-handedly hiring and firing
coaches, signing sponsorship contracts and picking the national team.
Despite winning many medals at world and Olympic competition over the years,
Arkayev was blamed for neglecting junior programmes and forcing out many top
coaches who disagreed with his management style.
"Selecting a team has become a real problem," Andrei Rodionenko, who was
given the tough task of rebuilding the national side after taking over from
Arkayev as head coach this year, told Reuters in an interview.
Rodionenko, 62, who guided the Soviets to eight gold medals at the 1988 Seoul
Olympics, was persuaded to return by former FIG president Yuri Titov after
coaching in Australia and Canada for several years.
Titov, a 1956 Olympic champion, was elected president of the Russian
gymnastics federation last year and began the process of bringing back coaches
who had left Russia to work abroad.
"In Soviet times, we used to have gymnastics centres all over the country,
thus we had a never-ending stream of young talent coming to the senior team,"
Rodionenko said. "Now, we have just a handful of gymnasts to pick the team for
Melbourne."
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