BACKGROUND: The Uzbekistani, Azerbaijani, and Kazakhstani successes in Sydney come as little surprise given that their athletes excelled in boxing and wrestling during Soviet times while the republics in the Caucasus traditionally produced top weightlifters and wrestlers. Recall, for example, the victories in the 1970s of the boxers Serik Konokbaev and Rufat Riskiev. The West recognized these athletes as "Russians," when in fact they hailed from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, respectively. Athletes from Kazakhstan made the most waves in Sydney, bringing home three gold and four silver medals. "We showed everyone what kind of boxing team Kazakhstan has," said a triumphant Tursungali Edilov, the national boxing coach. "Each one of them was on fire in the ring. Three matches against the Cubans, and 3-0 in our favor. What more can I say?"

Azerbaijan’s Olympic team also did very well. Freestyle wrestler Namik Abdullaev outscored American Sam Henson to take the gold in the 54kg class. His was the second gold medal of the summer games for a nation that has never won more than one medal of any color in previous Olympics. Teammates Zemfira Meftakhetdinova took the gold medal in standing shooting, while boxer Vugar Alekperov won a bronze in the 75kg class. Uzbekistan, on the other hand, made a strong impression, winning a gold, a silver, and two bronze medals. Mahamadkadyz Abdullaev won the light-welterweight boxing crown, and heavyweight Artur Taymazov finished second in freestyle wrestling. Armenian athletes were not as fortunate. Quite a few of them exited in disgrace after testing positive for banned substances despite their medal placements.

It is no accident, for example that the athletes of Kyrgystan were able to deliver just one bronze medal and the teams of Turkmenistan and Tajikistan returned home without medals or any significant results. The governments in these fledgling and impoverished nations concentrate their resources on sports popular with the public or traditional sports such as wrestling or martial arts where their athletes have previously met with some success. All other sports are being left to languish, and their athletes need to locate personal sponsors if they are to travel to competitions. Most significant to the decline of sport in the former republics is the severing after 1991 of ties forged across the huge Soviet space.

IMPLICATIONS: Much of the success of the Central Asia-Caucasus athletes is rooted in the former Soviet system of athletic training. The Soviet system centralized the preparation of promising athletes, much as Cuba and China do today. Most of these powerful training centers have been abandoned in the wake of post-Soviet chaos. Even in Russia which produced the majority of the USSR’s Olympic athletes and remains a great sports power, the training networks are going into ruins, especially at the local levels. In essence, the well-developed system of state support survives only for the national teams, for athletes who have already proven themselves to be of Olympic caliber. When the USSR disintegrated, many sportsmen were forced to relocate with some of them going off to Russia. Some remained in their newly sovereign homelands, especially if they could continue training or coaching in a high level center with promises of solid state support.

In a recent conversation, Viktor Borisov, the trainer of Kyrgyz Olympic marathoner Irina Bogachova, described the position of athletes today. Kyrgyz President Akaev pays attention only to the best athletes in the country. Thus Irina Bogachova, who did not make an especially impressive showing in Sydney, but is a world class athlete having placed second in this year’s Boston Marathon, receives honorary stipends and other forms of assistance from the State. This support does not compare with that of the Soviet period when all aspects of an athlete’s life were provided for. Even after successes in prestigious competitions, athletes today must earn money on their own in order to train and compete at world standards. They cannot get by on existing levels of state support alone.

The Sydney games exhibited merely a symbolic reflection of the past cross-regional familiarity within Soviet sports. It was certainly not a case of ethnic solidarity. The solidarity in question was the shared memory of a formerly shared homeland. This shared memory caused the International Boxing Federation to suspend Russian referee Stanislav Kirsanov from all international competitions for a period of four years. The American Olympic team issued a formal protest against the Russian referee following a gold medal bout between an American and a Kazakh boxer that the Kazakh athlete won. During the entire match, the Russian referee was conversing in the Russian language with the Kazakh fighter’s coaches, something that is strictly forbidden under the rules. The International Boxing Federation fully upheld the American protest and suspended the referee for four years, but it declined to reverse the result of the fight. The Kazakh boxer kept the gold medal, and the American got the silver.

CONCLUSIONS: In the patriotic newspaper Zavtra, a summary commentary on the Sydney Olympics writes: "The athletes of the fifteen nations of the Soviet Union won 48 victories in Sydney, or nine more than the United States. This tally will not appear in any official record book, but it demonstrates the strength of the Soviet sports establishment." Even today, in its ruined and divided condition, the former Soviet system is capable of producing Olympic champions. This fact is not lost on the athletes themselves. Some of the Azerbaijan and Kazakh medal winners paid explicit thanks to the Soviet sports system in interviews.

All told, nine of the former republics of the USSR, including Russia, produced gold medal winners at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Another four featured silver or bronze medallists. However, what we saw in Sydney was not the birth or debut of new sporting giants, but rather the fading light of a bright star, the afterglow of the Soviet sports juggernaut. One wonders how long its flame will continue to burn.

AUTHOR BIO: Rustem Safronov is the US-based special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta (Moscow), and is a frequent contributor to the BBC’s Russian and Central Asian Services. He worked in Turkmenistan during the Soviet period hosting television and radio programs. He received his MA from Moscow State Historical Archive Institute, and graduated from Moscow’s Super Komsomol School’s Department of Journalism. He has published widely in all of the major Russian press, and recently contributed a chapter on "Islam in Turkmenistan" for The Center for Political and Strategic Studies’ book Islam in Central Asia.

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