Recently in Austria, at a figure skating competition, our children were cheered as if there were no other participants. Ukrainian flags in the stands of the famous Olympic ice arena, thunderous applause, anthem. It turned out that Ukrainian athletes, who are now playing for Austria, came to watch the competition..

The Dnieper moved to the Danube.

This picture is unfortunately typical.. As for our young athletes, I think that 80% of them went abroad. You come to competitions in Europe and you see familiar faces: “Oh! This is a coach from Krivoy Rog! ”,“ I know these talented children! Kharkiv! They are now winning under foreign flags, playing for European clubs. Great ride, great competition. Will they return to Ukraine?

Even before the war, we were the " In the history of Independent Ukraine, we have won gold at the Winter Olympics three times. One of these awards is in figure skating.. But that victory might not be the only one.. The story of figure skater Elena Savchenko is a Ukrainian fairy tale about the “ugly duckling”. They didn’t believe in the girl, she constantly heard: “This is not your sport”. But Elena dreamed of figure skating so much that she became the best, won Olympic gold. Received the most prestigious award, but not for Ukraine, for Germany.

The war hurt our sport. I don’t know if there is a place for Ukrainian athletes to return from Europe. The Russians bombed ten ice arenas in Ukraine. Children who lost everything in the East are training in Lviv. There is a child who survived the terrible bombing. The shelling began at night, when everyone was sleeping peacefully. Exploded right next to the house. And this horror was superimposed on the period of teenage hormonal changes.. Then psychosomatic problems appeared, doctors say: “You can’t return to sports”. But leaving him is even worse for the psychological state..

A ten-year-old athlete is a well-formed personality. This kid lived on a schedule, with workouts every day, with plans and dreams.. He can't stop, it affects mood, sleep, nutrition. And it's a step back. The athlete comes to the coach in a month, you look and think: “That's it, we go back six months ago”. We experienced it at the beginning of a full scale invasion and will face it again when the children return after a long break.. If they return. Abroad, children have all the opportunities for complex training. There is a threat that they will not return to Ukraine, because we do not have such conditions.

I talk about figure skating, but all sports have suffered the same. The irregularity of training, inadequate conditions for training, the psychological state of children roll back Ukrainian sports very far back..

Many will say that talking about children's sports is not the right time.. Hospitals, schools have become ruins, entire cities are being destroyed. But every mother, every father wants his child to be happy and calm today, not tomorrow, not after recovery.. We can't stop the war, but we can take the child away from social media, where horror is endlessly told. Sport is critical for our children. Funding is critical for sports. For victories there should be the same opportunities as in Europe.

This is a tough topic. Children's sport is a very long-term investment, and it is not known whether it will be profitable if we are talking about advertising contracts for champions.. But when you invest in children's sports, you invest in healthy children, healthy physically and psychologically.. We need to invest in sports as a way of life. Both components are important, only from the financing and development of both are formed a healthy society and sports with high achievements. There must be a mass sport from which champions are born.

All over the world, sports are financed by the state, but there are other models. For example, in Poland there are federations that support parents and individual patrons, there are federations that support sponsors. At our school, we tested another option. There was a period when we used personal scholarships for our best athletes - we gave out annual grants for school. I cannot say that this is a successful model, because in a private school it is contrary to financial performance.. The amount of time and effort spent on an athlete increases significantly, while profits decrease, which affects the coach's pay and school opportunities.. It is necessary to invest in the development of schools, clubs, coaches. To form not a specific athlete, but opportunities for children. We have come to the period of development of the club system.

A talented athlete needs a coach who thinks about training, not about how to earn and survive. Athletes need sponsors who would help, albeit in small sums, but regularly. And this is not about big business, but rather about medium. I dream of living in a country where it is fashionable to donate to the development of children in general (not just to your child).

But we return again to the question of whether by the time investment in sports. Without mass sports, it will be very difficult for our children. I talked about the consequences of the war, but we must also talk about the “online” generation, about the consequences of the recent long quarantine. Children " We see " They do not know the primitive things that are taught in kindergarten, in everyday life. All they can do is play on their phone so as not to disturb their parents.

Those who are now 3–5 years old are a generation without social adaptation. This is an aspect for which we were unprepared.. And this is again about the fact that we vitally need sports, mass sports. The coach always understands which of the students is an athlete and who is not doing anything. Sport is concentration, the ability to organize yourself. The more training, the more children go beyond the ordinary and develop. Sport helps to win not only at the Olympics.