SPORTS – A TRAP OF THE XX CENTURY

 

The scandalous Olympiad in Salt-Lake City (USA) is over. For many people practically everyday conflicts, brought by Olympiad, were a surprise. At the same time, this turn of development of Olympic movement was forecasted using TRIZ methods already in 1988. Analysis of internal contradictions of sports movement showed that it should be subdivided into purely professional sports business and physical culture movement, which is in no way associated with  sports achievements and records. Then this forecast was taken skeptically, while now it begins to come true. TRIZ methods enable to perform the analysis and to predict the development not only of engineering, but also of social systems. I disseminate the article which was written 14 years ago without any changes, though I would like to correct and to refine many things. It would be interesting to continue the discussion on forecasting using TRIZ.

 

Mikhail S.Rubin, Mountain climbing instructor, TRIZ Master,

Petrozavodsk, February 25, 2002.

 

 

© M.S.Rubin.

SPORTS  – A TRAP OF THE XX CENTURY.[1]

Sports: «An object of passionate fondness,

something, which serves as a means of attainment of success

(predominantly in non-favorable comparisons)»

From Dmitry Ushakov's "Explanatory dictionary of the Russian Language", 1940.

 

PROLOGUE.

  "Soviet sports" newspaper, referring to the Jugoslavian newspaper "Magyar-son" reported on September 2, 1988 that the results of many football, basketball, chess and other sports competitions are planned in the evenings in a fashionable Belgrade hotel in the atmosphere of relaxation.  The strongest argument in negotiations with referees and sports bosses – long-legged brunettes Lena, Rosa and other ladies from the demi-monde. During one night of "work" Rosa, for example, gets 400 thousand dinars. One third of this sum is paid as taxes to the Football Federation as a payment for organization work. The range of servicing - from world football stars to everyday work for their own club. It happens often that the girls from the First League are leased by other clubs in order to improve their difficult situation. A vicious example, as it is known, is infectious.

1. Industry of records.

Working as an instructor at an alpinist base "UZUNKOL" I once became a witness of a curious dispute. A known alpinist, who laid many routes to the peaks of Caucasus, was defending a simple truth: a real alpinist should be able to climb mountains, and should not hope for special equipment only. A younger alpinist objected to his assertion: because of modern alpinist equipment some routes, which were someday treated as record-setting ones, can now be passed in 1-2 days instead of a week.   Our sympathies were, unconditionally, on the side of a smart-looking and well-preserved (in spite of the age) veteran, who was in good sports condition.  And still we knew- without super-light, convenient and reliable equipment nobody would venture to perform a serious mountain expedition. The discussion developed into a high-pitched argument, and a contradiction became more and more explicit: the alpinist equipment should be developed, in order to provide for convenience and safety of mountain-climbing, and alpinist equipment should not be developed – in order not to convert alpinism into the art of movement along the secured ropes.

Here are some curious data. In 1952 only 10 cases of mountain climbing related to the highest degree of complexity (5-b) were recorded. In 1973 already 250 such mountain trips were performed and now the annual number of such super-complex trips amounts to about one hundred. And the increase in the number of ascensions exactly matches the growth in the number of inventions related to alpinist equipment and to the general technization of mountain-climbing: radio communication, special costumes, automobile roads, a set of control and rescue services… Alpinism, which is nowadays closely connected with legends was converted into the industry of quick and possibly safe ascension to the peaks. This industry has its own production plan, bonuses and "socialist competitions".

Since old times it was not allowed to make a pit for high jumping higher than the race track. Turning jump substituted scissors, however the meaning of jumps as exercises consisting in overcoming hazards remained the same. New jumping technique introduced by the American R.Fosbury astonished everyone at the Olympic Games of 1968. It was written in the journal "Lyogkaya atletika" ("Track-and-field events"): "To the majority of enthusiasts the mastering of new jumping techniques will not bring anything but injuries. Jumping according to Fosbury method presupposes landing on one-s back…" More than 20 years passed and new technique (which is called "Fosbury flop") elbowed out all other methods, while the "pit" for jumps was raised more than one meter over the racing track and was converted into a polyurethane one instead of a sand one. The record was increased by 14 centimeters. Maybe, improvement of sports technology contributes to the development of athletes themselves? Here is the opinion of the champion of Olympic Games of 1960 R.M.Shavlakadze: "I am only sure of one thing, in our will for victory, in our devotion to our common cause - please, understand that I am sincere about that -  we would not only be equal to, but also surpass our followers. Modern high jumpers are leaders in terms of results, breakdowns take place much more often".

A troublesome tendency is visible in all kinds of sports: physical and moral development is substituted by the development of sports equipment, competition between people - by the competition between manufacturers. In sledging sports, for example, the results depend upon the quality of sledges, and in skating upon the appurtenance of the costume to recognizable brands, quality of skates and of ice. Now there are covered skating-rinks with so-called "quick ice": its thickness and temperature are strictly maintained constant. A real war of technologies sprang around doping in sports. On the one hand new stimulators are being developed and the biochemists formulate their task rather explicitly: nothing has to be identified in the organism of a sportsman on X-day. On the other hand, anti-dope industry also develops. 4 000 preparations are currently prohibited. Two million British pounds were spent on equipping only one dope control laboratory at the Olympiad in Seoul, which managed to identify 10 Olympic sportsmen, who used dope including the star of the world sports - Ben Johnson. In reality the number of such sportsmen was at least ten times larger.  Besides different biochemical techniques, enabling to circumvent dope-control "blood dope" is also known – transfusion of blood prior to the competitions with the introduction of toners, which are barely distinguishable in express analysis.  A purely barbaric method for achieving records appeared recently – forced pregnancy. During the first months, because of improvement of blood delivery sports indications grow, and then the lady gets rid of the fetus. Consequences of using dope are horrible - incurable illnesses and death.

 

Is there any sense in sports, which develops due to engineering and chemistry and does not bring any use to the human? Here is a typical answer to this question: sports is needed for development and up-bringing of a personality, for strengthening friendship between nations…  Let us analyze these assertions more attentively.

1. Sports is health and active rest.

From the interview in the newspaper "Soviet sports" (dated 21.01.88, p. 2):

Yu. Zakharevich (world champion) – "Physical culture is health, and sports is such a difficult that you could ruin your health doing it".

Sh. Marciuloenis (member of all-Russia basketball team) – "Big sports does not bring any health. I also have sleepless nights. I awake from a sensation that the balls fly onto my head».

Yelena Mukhina was once asked in an interview about her plans for the nearest future. "If only at least I could start to be able to move my hands… I would like to comb my hair myself, to thumb through a book without anybody's assistance…" After a severe injury in 1978 which occurred when she was performing a double sault with a 360-degree turn Yelena is almost entirely immobile. Among the young representatives of different kinds of sports– 14-15-year olds – many acquired rather serious diseases.

At the Olympiad in Seoul the USSR team won the largest number of medals, which is almost 10 times greater than the number of medals won by Japan. At the same time the children, which are under 1 year of age die 5 times more often than in Japan. The duration of life of men in the USSR is averagely 10 years shorter and of women - 12 years shorter than in Japan.

2. Sports identifies will qualities of the humans at their limits.

Stepping down the victory podium, the champions and record-breakers are often left with nothing – their careers are ruined, they are lost and forgotten by everybody…». The problem of money is especially acute. As a result athletes become luggage-carriers at the railway terminals, they sell meat at the market, bath attendants, loaders, they acquire professions, which are convenient for them but which don't offer any opportunity to reveal their inner spiritual potential. 

Sports prepares an entire army of former stars, doomed to experience nostalgia about glory, victims and material wealth. It can happen that a former sportsman finds the outcome from the conflict in idle way of life, in drinking. The fate of our football star – Valery Voronin - is characteristic in this respect. Restaurants, handfuls of anti-insomnia pills, girls, running about the city all nights long. Voronin was 44, when he was once found unconscious in the outskirts of the city with a scull broken through by a heavy object – the circumstances of this crime are unknown until now.

3.  Sports decreases the level of violation of laws and hooliganism.

Probably, the tours of duty of militia and police at the stadiums during sports competitions should contribute to that. At the Olympic games in  Seoul, for example, there were 120 thousand security policemen –15 times more than sportsmen, however, this measure is still insufficient. For example, in 1985 in Brussels 39 people perished during the football match, in 1987 the fans exploded a bomb with tear gas, some people were wounded. In 1988, at the Olympic market in Seoul the trainers and the bottle-holders of a boxer from south Korea beat the referee from ew Zealand.

It was recently openly admitted that mafia exists in our country. In particular, it became clear that the sportsmen constitute a majority among the militants of mafia – to get arms is no problem for them. The clans of mafia are headed either by former sportsmen, or professional criminals.

4. Development of sports contributes to the development of physical training.

Wherever it is possible - in the leasing of facilities, stadiums, swimming pools, training halls absolute preference is given to sports in comparison to physical training. Averagely 40-50 kopeck are spent monthly on one person who is doing physical training, while the sum spent on a sportsman is 1-2 orders of magnitude higher. Physical culturists are working people: workers, officials, scientists. Apart from the fact that they compensate for tiny amounts of money, which the state spends on them, they more often than not themselves pay for subscriptions, hotel vouchers, inventory. Sportsmen get everything free of charge and out of turn.  A paradoxical situation appears: if you would like to improve your health – pay for it and stand queues; if you don't like it, you may use the stadium or swimming pool free of charge, but then you will have to pay with records for it, while you are healthy enough.

5. Sports contributes to strengthening and development of the human body.

"Five fractures of a right hand and three fractures of the left (with these hands Riskijev hammered out the medals for our sports!). He cannot work as a trainer now, intraocular pressure grew… He has not been working for six months, he has three children, what shall he do - the first world champion among the Soviet boxers? Who should care about this? Maybe, those, who got ranks and big bonuses for his victories?" ("Komsomolskaya pravda", 30.01.88 ,p. 4).

In 1987 the world was shocked by another victim of "big sports". Twenty-six-year old Birgit Dressel died in West Germany. The diagnosis: toxicosis, irreversible decomposition of blood. Chemical preparations, which this sportswoman used, helped her to get promoted from the 33-rd to 6-th place in the world in the athletic septathlone. Anabolics used by her are prohibited in many countries even for feeding farm animals. It is noteworthy that the doctor, who "helped" Birgit Dressel, serves up to 2400 leading athletes annually…

 

Sports movement contains a contradiction: on the one hand, it brings health and self-discipline, while on the other hand - diseases and hooliganism. On the one side we see physical and moral improvement of athletes, while on the other hand – one-sided and ugly development of a personality. With the flow of time this contradiction becomes more and more acute. The higher the peaks attained by sports, the deeper the precipice, opening before society. The only way of solving this contradiction is the liquidation of sports as a movement, termination of the record race.

 

2. Sports industry and the state.

Growth of records and evolution of sports equipment is accompanied by a still more violent upswing of profits from the capital invested in sports. Only the cost of right for telecasting Olympic games, for example, in 1976 amounted 0.168 billion francs, in 1980 – 1.7 billion francs, and in 1988 – already 2.4. Telecasts of world football championship cost 0.19 billion francs. In this case the TV companies don't lose anything, since they receive still more profits from the advertising of goods during the telecasts of competitions. The dictatorship of business is so great that even at the Olympic games the order and the time-table of competitions are selected not on the grounds of convenience for the sportsmen and spectators, but based on the opportunities of advertising of goods by the company, which spent more money than other companies. The victories of sportsmen are converted into dollars, francs and rubles. The records, which at a glance have no sense, acquire particular practical function. An entire system has been created, which converts sports achievements into money. For example, in 1987 State sports committee received more than 300 million rubles of net profit from different sports lotteries (after remittance of different amounts). The newspaper "Soviet sports" only annually brings profit the order of magnitude of which is approximately 22 million rubles. Apart from periodicals the profit is gained from sports events, from advertising and from sports industry, and international competitions.   Five billion dollars were received for the football player A. Zavarov, who agreed to play for Turin club "Juventus" for three years. Sweepstakes and pools are largely used in the world of business as well as bribing and enticement of sportsmen, bargains with mafia, forced control over the results of competitions, sports shows.

Mechanics of sports business will be more explicit, if we analyze the interests of three components of it: fans, sportsmen and sports organizers.

The fans are losers from each viewpoint. The pay for the life of sportsmen and a number of sports-related people: trainers, organizers, doctors. Irrespective from the ways, through which the money are obtained – advertising, pools or sports lotto, - they come from the pocket of the working people, what do they get in exchange? Health and physical development? No! Intellectual or aesthetic development? Neither! Sports fans don't develop – they "find delight in the sight".  The movement of fans and spectators in sports is a kind of consumption in the sphere of physical culture: it is easier to pay for the ticket for a football or a hockey match than, for example, to carry a rucksack up the hill, having paid money for it. Professional disease of the fans is to defend "their own team", irrespective of the facts or despite these facts. Sports is a kind of opium spoiling the minds of people. Many of them become professional fans or players of sports lotto. Real cultural values are substituted with maniacal "fandom" with professional fans. Only such kinds of sports, which are close to art: calisthenics, figure skating, ice ballet are exceptions.

Having completed his workday, the fans become a link of another, sports-related technological process, in which they loose money instead of getting it and ultimately they loose their lives.

As a rule, sportsmen pay a very high price for all their achievements. The life, deformed by sports, daily labor at the limit of potential, endless injuries and diseases, loss of "civil" specialty – this is the reverse side of gold medals and high fees.

For state and professional sports workers  it has been established that sports means stable income and promotion. Directors, organizers, doctors and arbiters don't squander away their health, don't subject their organism and their will to overstrains. They don't wake up at night because of nightmares and don't break their legs and arms. Sportsmen for them are but a tool for fulfilling and over-fulfilling of plans and socialist obligations. This ideal tool does not consider the results of his labor to be his merit and does not demand fees for it. The sports directors are doing their best to attain such "ideal". For example, out of 5 million dollars, received for A.Zavarov, one million was remitted to state budget, two - to Goscomsport of the USSR and two more - to Kiev "Dynamo". The football player himself got less than one per cent of the entire amount of the contract. Another example. At the world chess championship in Cevilla the prize fund constituted

2 854 000 Swiss franks. 20% of this fund were remitted to International chess Association (FIDE), 64% - to State sports committee (Goscomsport) of the USSR. The sportsmen themselves – Kasparov and Karpow were privileged to be given only 8 % of the prize. A similar situation is observed in hockey, big tennis, basketball – in all kinds of sports, bringing obvious profits.

 

A sorrowful conclusion can be drawn: sports is profitable only for a small group of people from the management network, for industrialists and other people, to whom sports brings profit. To the absolute majority – spectators and sportsmen, - sports brings more harm than use.

This conclusion is so gloomy that there is no wish to believe it, while isn't this sports which makes millions of people witnesses of high-level mastery and sometimes - even of real heroism of sportsmen. Tears of woe and of joy, mutual help and self-sacrificing – all this cannot leave the spectators cold. Doing sports lighted the lives of hundreds thousand people – they would never cross out from their lives the joy of victories and popularity. Can it really be that all this is done only for the sake of money and profits? An explicit example is Natalia Kuchinskaya. Some time ago she was an Olympic champion in gymnastics. Her name was known in the whole world. "The bride of Mexico" – that is how she was referred to at that time. After a career in sports she wanted to become an actress, a journalist, a psychologist, but nothing came of it. Now she works with children as an ordinary gymnastics trainer (there are thousands of such trainers) with an ordinary monthly salary, in an ordinary sports section, in which no gifted children are selected, but ordinary children from the street are recruited. She is a very good and clever trainer, however she never trained a single world champion.

Sports has many advantages, which have been preserved since the times when sports was born- when sports was a necessary condition for bringing up the warriors. The Olympic winners received neither money, nor expensive prizes and had only one privilege - to be the first to attack.. However the fetishism of records and sports victories, switch-over to resources of business – all this inevitably devaluates sports, converts it into a faceless mechanism intended  for producing records and victories. Even "the bride of Mexico" within the scope of this mechanism gets converted into an ordinary components - one of many thousand similar components.

 * * *

Scientific studies demonstrated that constant and monotonous physical loads decrease the level of mental abilities of people (ë. 4, p. 112).  The majority of kinds of sports presuppose such monotonous physical load: running, shot put, jumping, throwing the hammer, weightlifting... The objects of leg-pulling are not only sportsmen, but also their fans. For example, sports-lotto and sports-forecasting could be substituted for "business lotto" or "industrial forecast". The objective could be the fulfillment of the plan. The amount of reject and the emissions of noxious substances are also of importance. It will be more useful, however, the excitement of gambling wouldn't be less intensive.

A real caste of supporters appeared, which call themselves fans. For example, the fans of "Dynamo" persecute the fans of "Zenyth", they travel through the country following the traces of  their favourite club, or, to be more exact, of the club, which has become their fetish, they trigger provocations and fights at the stadiums, unfortunately, several murders took place as well.

Why does the state intentionally make fools of sportsmen and fans? There can be only one answer: it is profitable for the state, or, to be exact, for the ruling bodies of the state. It is more profitable to furnish detailed information on sports news every hour than to inform population about the emissions of noxious substances or accidents at manufacturing plants. It is much simpler and more profitable to throw a ball on a football field, than to create a complicated system of developing a society, consisting of highly cultured people characterized by independent thinking.

The state usually uses myths to cover their profits from sports. Myths about the usefulness of doing sports are constantly created. Very popular, for example, is the myth of mass physical culture and GTO complex (a set of sports norms under the slogan: Be ready for labor and defence!"), which was destined to support another myth – that sports contributes to the development of culture. It happened many times: old myths appeared to be a reflection of actual events. And the myths of modern sports industry appear to be a real phony.

"For many years all work was reduced to one and the same thing: we had to order big groups of people to gather at the stadiums and sports grounds 1 or 2 times a year and demanded impossible things from them, which was, naturally a damage to their health.

Or imagine how the village citizens could pass their GTO test, provided that they have to work in the field since the middle of May till October. After such competitions the physical training and sports workers had to sit down and to write packs of fake protocols – the plans established by the authorities were really impressive». ("Soviet sports", February 2, 1988, p. 2).

«Î sports, - you are peace!» - than is a slogan with wings, as they say. However, things can be different. For example, a war broke out between Salvador and Honduras in 1969. The reason was a test match between these two countries at a football world championship. In order to stimulate the militant spirit the radio station of Salvador repeated the recording of that evil football match every day. This football war led to the loss of 3 thousand human lives, both countries carried huge material damages. In 1980 USA did not take part in the Moscow Olympics, while in 1984 these were our sportsmen who were unable to go to Los-Angeles. In 1988 Cuba boycotted the Olympics. Sports is only a reflection of the world, its political compass, but not the "rails" directing its development.

Out of s system of exercises for developing durability and flexibility sports evolved into a tool of commerce and politics.

 

3. By the order of the Roman Emperor.

The Olympic movement existed in ancient Greece for 1170 years. During this time former former nation-wide sports became professional. Sportsmen were no longer the first to rise into a battle. Their professional trainers insisted upon the fact that their  should stick to a strict daily schedule and nutrition mode. Prizes for victories also became different – now these were expensive cups and money. Even the methods of selective breeding for the sake of victories and records (there were no hormone-based preparations at that time), because required breeds of sportsmen could be selected.  Due to art the portraits of such people have been preserved till the present time. Here are some lines from the book "The Olympic disk" by the famous Polish writer Jan Parandowski:

"Art necessarily had to go through a period of naturalism, in order to venture on crating portraits of this type of SAPIENS. It created figures, which were astonishing by their excess of flesh and muscles. People were depicted sitting or bearing themselves against a tree or against a column, in an unnatural paralysis of force, which seems to be an unbearable burden. The artists were never afraid of reproducing their faces, depicting several animal-like creatures with low foreheads, empty eyes, flat noses, with lips that have the form of two lumps of flesh - and all this was covered with thick hair. During the times of the Roman empire the figures were still more repulsive – they are met in mosaic pictures, in which the athlete is presented as a creation of new geological epochs, something like a manlike ichthyosaurus with a gigantic body and a surprisingly small head, about which it is difficult to imagine that there are brains in it" (p. 209).

 

Let us imagine that a law is passed, which prohibits to organize sports competitions.  Sportsmen would be obliged to work, sports organizations would be dismissed, while the police would trace and eradicate all attempts to organize all kinds of venturesome and harmful competitions... This is not an invention, but a historical fact. In 393 A.C. the Roman emperor Theodosius I issued a decree according to which the "pagan holidays" were no longer allowed. Olympic Games were prohibited and the keys of the temples were taken away from the priests.  Universal sports was reduced to gymnastics-based games and outdoor games for adolescents or was used for training soldiers (in its most primitive form). 

It was not until the XIX century that the revival of sports started. Folk games have been preserved and much attention in the upbringing of young aristocrats was given to horse-riding, fencing, hunting, but doing sports was never an end in itself. There were people, who are characterized by force, agility and good health, but they were never called sportsmen.

Neither did the utopian socialists find the place for the sportsmen in their works. Thomas More wrote in his "Utopia", for example, that "it is rather silly to torture oneself without use for the sake of somebody because of an empty ghost of a virtue or for the sake of having enough strength to endure the anticipated troubles with less pain, though these troubles could never occur". In the Solar City (La cittá dall'Sole") invented by Tommaso Campanella every citizen has to work no more than four hours a day: the remaining time is spent in pleasant studies of sciences, conversations, reading, story-telling, writing, walks, development of metal and physical talents, and all this is done with joy. It is only prohibited to play dice or to roll the stones, to play chess and other games, which imply sitting". Physical development is intended only for health improvement.

It can be read in the Encyclopedic dictionary of F.A.Brockhaus and I.A.Efron that "nowadays (1900) the word "sports" is used to denote all kinds of activities, which are targeted at pleasure or enjoyment, however, not at profit". With such an impression îf sports humanity entered the 20-th century – the period of industrial and scientific-and-technological revolution. Professions with a deficit of physical load appear more and more often. The amount of spare time is growing. Olympic movement is being restored. The entertainment industry makes its first steps. The biography of the wrestler Ivan Poddubny is characteristic of this period. He was born in 1871, since 12 years of age he was a hired man, at 22 he was a loader in the port. He got fond of physical exercises and then started wrestling with professionals in the circus (it's a curious evolution: in the past the loaders became sportsmen, while nowadays sportsmen become loaders). His father, a hereditary grain-grower, started to reproach his wife: "You just fancy, into what your son grew. A circus performer, Ivan the fool… He jungles with weights… Or wrestles with such fools as he himself…" Some time passed. "Large sums of money, earned by his son and his expensive presents reconciled him with the profession of his son. After all, the Poddubny family managed to buy several acres of land, and it was felt that the family was growing richer. Ivan Poddubny used to say: As long as I have strength, I shall continue wresting and buy land and the land will never betray you…"

Since the first years of Soviet power physical upbringing in the USSR was understood as a process making labor and everyday life healthier, making the development of a personality more harmonious. Lenin, Lunatcharsky, Semashko and Podvoisky wrote much about that. The greatest troubles in the country were starvation, famines, medical service was practically absent, infant death rate was rather high. Under these conditions only mass physical culture could help to overcome illnesses. At that time circles of physical culture had equal rights with other club-based circles – dramatic, musical, choreographic. In 1927 N.A.Semashko wrote: "A physically developed person is not a sportsman with huge muscles and expanded heart, but a person, which is harmoniously developed in physical sense".  Until 1928 gymnastics was looked upon as the means of physical culture, there were practically no competitions.

Stalinism of 1930 set forth the slogan "Catch up and surpass!" It was decided that the prestige of the country and the advantages of socialism should be proven with records practically everywhere: in construction, in coal mining, in long-distance flights. "Record mania" was inevitably extended to physical culture. It was emphasized that "neglecting attitude to sports competitions" was inacceptable. The period of forming sports beaurocratic apparatus started, records and mass character of sports being the main objectives for this apparatus. Reporting was given much attention to.

The life of Znamensky brothers is highly illustrative of the period. In 1918  Georgy was 14 years old, Seraphim was 11. Their elder brother Sergei, having returned from the war decided to improve his health through physical culture – both his own and that of his brothers (Sergei knew about physical upbringing from the works of Lock). The brothers chopped and sawed wood, brought water from the river, running and did everything in a quick tempo. In 1925 Sergei became a physical culture instructor. In 1931 Georgy and Seraphim went to Moscow to start working at a factory. When they tried to pass a test in GTO, it appeared that they run much quicker than others. In 1933 they won at the championship of Moscow and set their first  records. Now they were running not for the sake of health, and even not for their own pleasure, but form the defence of the honor of their factory, their collective, the whole country. It is characteristic that in 1933 only 53 records were set in the USSR. In 1934 – already 200, the industry of records started to gain momentum.

In the 1930-ies a slogan was set forth: "Every sportsman is a shock worker and every shock worker is a sportsman!" Nowadays everything is just the opposite. The majority of those who work, cannot manage GTO (logically speaking, they are ready neither for labor, nor to defence). The sportsmen are characterized by just the opposite – they neither work, nor get ready for defense. For example, Oleg Blokhin, the major of Internal Troops of Ministry of Internal Affairs is a professional football-player. For a certain period of time he played for the Austrian club "Vorwaerts". He would hardly be able to be a professional in football and in a trade of war concurrently.

A of today, there are no newspapers and magazines devoted to sports in our country. However there are heaps on heaps of newspapers, journals and bulletins devoted to sports. Newspapers, radio and TV regularly provide us with sports information. Physical culture remains to stay in the backyards. As a result – up to 50% of examined schoolchildren in our country suffer from distortions of locomotor system, 63,3% of examined first-year students are characterized by insufficient ability to work physically. Files with reports on passing the GTO tests become thicker and thicker, while the check of recruits showed that only 32.6% of recruits , which were registered as having GTO badges (testimony of having successfully passed the test) could fulfill its norms, 15% of recruits appeared to be unable to serve in the Armed forces.

 

4. The end of sports movement.

We know a lot about the harm brought by drinking and drug addiction, we don't compose victorious anthems to smoking. And we have to clearly understand that the sports movement will never come to glorious and victorious end.

Deep and radical restructuring of our life is needed, in order to raise the prestige of physical culture and in order to eliminate sports doping.

 

To separate physical training from sports: eliminate sports movement.

Integration of physical training with sports on theb one hand creates an attractive screen for sports and on the other hand puts physical training into a position of «underdeveloped sports». Noble goals of physical training are automatically transferred to sports, while the achievements of sports are presented in such a way as if they manifest the development of physical culture. Physical culture should develop under the guidance of Ministry of culture, Minzdrav (Ministry of Health) of the USSR, however not under the guidance of Goscomsport. The final objective is the entire elimination of sports. It is difficult to attain, while there is money and industry of entertainment. Struggle is ahead of us, which cannot be efficient without the separation of physical culture from sports.

Many kinds of sports are only artificially associated with the sports hierarchical system, for example, tourism and alpinism. The very idea of conducting competitions distorts their initial meaning.  These fields should develop independently, without any direct connections with sports. Goskomsports will create all kinds of hindrances for that  – nowadays it gets great part of its profits from tourism and alpinism.

 

Raise the prestige of physical culture.

First of all, it is necessary to get rid of a perverse idea of a physical culturist as that of a third-grade sportsman, a person, who cannot manage doing sports. Sports is not a peak of physical culture, but its distorted branch. At the same time GTO norms are currently based on aan awful principle: the best sportsman is a sports master in GTO.

Essentially new forms of attracting people to physical culture are needed. In the West it became possible to make health fashionable. American companies Levi-Strauss and Bonnie Bell, for example, increase monthly wages and prolong summer vacation of those, who devote part of their spare time to – they fall ill less often. In West Germany sportsmen have privileges in getting a medical insurance. There are some changes in a positive direction in our country as well. The applicants to all high schools of Georgia since 1988 have to pass a test in physical culture. Honoured people, who contributed to the development of physical culture should get prizes and privileges, their names should become popular through cinema and fiction. Special newspapers and magazines devoted to physical culture are necessary. Instead of sports stars we need stars of physical culture, like academicians Pavlov and Amossov or a writer Yury Vlassov.

 

World physical culture movement as an opposition to International sports movement.

The idea of Coubertin concerning the international amateur sports is failing. It has been eaten through by worms of business and professionalism. The Olympic chart is violated regularly and persistently. Now it is not possible to create a movement of people, fond of physical training, which is free from sports in one country only. Having resigned the cultivation of sports, this country not only loses its income from sports, but appears to be a black sheep in politics and cultural ties.

International movement of physical culturists should have its own program of making people healthier, its own holidays and rituals, which could be organized not in one city, but in different countries concurrently. Physical culture movement should be associated not only with physical development, but also with culture of labor and everyday life, with ecological problems, health protection and nutrition quality. Neither should the movement of physical culturists contradict the interests of international business.

The achievements of sports science should be used for the development of physical culture.

During the period of its evolution sports accumulated not only lists of records, but also a certain cultural potential. It should become devoid of superfluous attributes and used for the sake of developing  physical culture. In all kinds of sports there are specialists, for whom health and harmonious development of the humans is much more important than records and prestigious titles.

Sports science should also turn its face to physical training. Now it is mainly occupied with squeezing records out of sportsmen. Sportsmen are given much attention to by psychologists, physiologists, biochemists, specialists in cybernetics and electronics. Data on sportsmen is entered into computers, mathematical models are being created and forecasts are being made – everything is done for the sake of attaining records and victories at the competitions. These forces should be directed at the development of physical culture. In the 1920-ies N.I.Podvoisky and other organizers of our physical training science could only dream of such a potential of physical culture.

The goal of physical culture should be health and harmonious development of people.

Preparation for labor and defense is a secondary objective of physical culture. Human health is an eternal value, which should be a "dictator" in labor, in military life and in politics, to say nothing of physical culture. Human health should rather be measured not by the length of jumps, speed of running or accuracy of shooting, but by the functional evolution of the human proper, development of his vital organs, absence of diseases and actively long life. Specialists in medicine will probably have to develop the objective, easily changeable indicators of the human health.

To preserve health of sportsmen, they should be diverted from "record mania". The reason for quitting sports is often tragic: a serious injury received incidentally or as a result of doing sports, illness or death of a relative… One should not wait for an incident or even a tragedy in order to change one's objective in time. The biographies of sportsmen are  known. Young people should take this into account. It happens often that former sportsmen switch over to professions, which are close to sports: from parachute sports – to aircraft construction, from chess to artificial intellect, from alpinism - to mountain-climbing inventory and inventive activity, from acrobatics - to circus medicine.

 

Physical force and military engineering were main triggers of humanity evolution throughout the entire human history. Now a new era is approaching. It is impossible to survive relying only on force and arms. The human mind is becoming the main guarantee of life. New, creative style of life and of thinking is incompatible not only with the armament race, but also with the evolution of sports industry. It should be substituted by an industry of health, culture of thinking and new style of life, which is not based on consumption.

 

Epilogue.

 On October 2, 1988 the newspaper "Sotsialisticheskaya industrija" published an interview of a biochemist and doctor Belloc to the Parisian journal "Express". Belloc is a doping specialist:

 

-          How many of your clients are present at the Olympics in Seoul?

-          About one hundred, out of them thirty are French.

-          Do you think that all kinds of sports are infected with doping?

-          Yes, they are. There are no exceptions.  I assert that a champion should risk his health in order to beat the records of the world.

 

Reference.

1.      G.S.Altshuller. To find an idea, Novosibirsk, "Nauka", 1986.

2.      Physical culture and sports. Small encyclopedia, M.,"Raduga publishers", 1982.

3.      Everything about sports. Ì.: "Physical culture è sports", 1978 ã.

4.      Sports in a modern society.– Ì.: "Physical culture è sports", 1980.

5.      I.I.Pereverzin. Sports of the future, "Znanije publishers", 1980.

6.      Jan Parandowsky. Olympic disk.– Moscow. "Progress", 1979.

7.      A.A.Svetov. Physical culture and sports in the life of famous people. Physical culture è sports, 1963.

8.      A.Kuleshov. Sports-based business, "Znanije publishers", 1984.

9.      History of physical culture and sports; /Edited by V.V.Stolbov – 2-nd edition, - Ì.: Physical culture è sports, 1984.

10.  G.S. Demetrus. Physical culture in a socialist society (historical essay), "Znanije publishers", Ì., 1987.

11.  B.Khavin. Everything about Olympic Games. Ì., Physical culture and sports, 1979.

 

 

October, 1988