OREANDA-NEWS. January 18, 2011. “The programme is intended to promote the value of a healthy and active life in the community, to support the development of sport and, naturally, of athletic achievement, and to attract more people of different ages, backgrounds and income levels to athletics, including those with limited physical abilities."

Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

To begin, I would like to share my impressions of what I saw here today in Novogorsk. I was pleased to see the new ice rink and winter sport centre. It is beautiful and functional. As far as I know, our top athletes like it. This is where our youth hockey team trained before its confident performance at the Canadian competition. I am glad to have this opportunity to congratulate them once more on their victory.

I would like to inform you that a government order was signed today establishing the organising committee for another world athletic event, the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The committee will assume essential organisational duties, tackling problems such as the coordination of Russian regional governments and agencies with our partners abroad, as well as the organisation and media coverage of the championship itself. A supervisory board will be established under the committee to oversee its work. I have asked the Ministry of Sport and Tourism to submit its proposals on board membership within a month.

Now, I propose to analyse the implementation of the development strategy for fitness and sport in Russia through 2020. We will also hold a videoconference with our colleagues in the Novosibirsk, Tula, and Perm regions and see how our work is progressing at a local level.

The development strategy for fitness and sport was adopted in 2009. We all know that it was a hard year – particularly in terms of maintaining economic growth rates and macroeconomic indices – because of the crisis and all of its negative consequences. However, we did not shelf this project, which was of critical importance for millions of our citizens and, above all, the Russian youth. The programme is intended to promote the value of a healthy and active life in the community, to support the development of sport and, naturally, of athletic achievement, and to attract more people of different ages, backgrounds and income levels to athletics, including those with limited physical abilities. It is essential that regular exercise and abstinence from pernicious habits become the norm for a majority of our people. I see in that goal a true accomplishment for each man and woman and, without exaggeration, for the people of Russia as a whole.

I would like to remark in that regard that our coordination with regional and municipal governments and public organisations has yielded positive results overall. As compared with 2008 – we will not draw comparisons with 1913, as statisticians often do, but rather talk about the recent past – the number of people engaged in regular exercise has grown by two million. Now, almost 25 million people regularly visit gyms and stadiums in this country. According to our plans, that number should exceed 42 million by 2015 and perhaps even approach the level of our European neighbours, roughly 70% of whom exercise regularly. Mass sport must become truly accessible to all, which means that we need to develop its infrastructure. Ideally, local athletic venues should be available everywhere.

Close to 300 new federally funded facilities opened last year, including football fields, fitness centres and training grounds for teams of all levels. All told, Russia currently has over 243,000 athletic venues catering to 6.3 million people at any given time – that's 200,000 people more than in 2008. As I have said, there is still ample room for progress. Our success has been modest. However, the positive trends are evident. I would like to say in that regard that this is only the beginning of a large-scale project. Much remains to be done. We must make sizeable investments. This is doubtless one of our priorities.