Russian athletes did not take part in the first three Olympics.
And finally, Russian names appeared in the protocols of the IV Olympics, held on the banks of the Thames. The application sent to London from Russia included eight people. But a team of five people came to the games:
Nikolay Panin-Kolomenkin, Nikolay Orlov, Andrey Petrov, Evgeny Zamotin and Grigory Demin.
The Olympic debut of Russian athletes was extremely successful. Of the five people, three returned home with awards.
The first Russian Olympic champion became Nikolai Panin-Kolomenkin, who won in figure skating. Wrestlers won silver medals classic style lightweight Nikolai Orlov and heavyweight Andrey Petrov.
An interesting struggle unfolded in a typical winter sport included in the program of the Summer Olympics - figure skating.
It was here that an athlete from Russia won the first Olympic gold medal. Nikolai Kolomenkin managed to do this. His sports pseudonym, which is inscribed in gold in Olympic history, is N. Panin. The Russian athlete skated superbly. The judges unanimously placed him in first place, giving him a total of 219 points out of a possible 240, or 91.8 percent. No one had achieved such a high result then. In the official report on IV Olympic Games it was said: “Panin (Russia) was far ahead of his rivals both in the difficulty of his figures and in the beauty and ease of their execution. He carved a series of the most perfect designs on the ice with almost mathematical precision.”
At the IV Olympic Games in London, Nikolai Orlov (up to 66 kg) and Alexander Petrov (heavy weight) won silver medals for the first time. Heavyweight Alexander Petrov lost to Hungarian Richard Weitz, who became the Olympic champion, and lightweight Nikolai Orlov in an equal fight lost to Italian Enrico Porro, who won gold medal. At the V Olympic Games of 1912 in Stockholm (Sweden), Russian wrestler Martin Klein defeated the 1911 world champion Alfred Asikainen in the final on points and won a silver medal. The meeting lasted 10 hours and 15 minutes and went down in the history of wrestling as an example of extraordinary endurance, willpower and perseverance.
Since the beginning of the 20th century. Russian athletes began to take more active part in international competitions. They competed in friendly matches and official championships in many sports. Russian wrestlers and weightlifters, skiers and speed skaters, football players and hockey players, fencers and rowers, and representatives of other sports met with foreign athletes. Russian athletes often emerged victorious at European and world championships and the Olympic Games. Thus, the wonderful Russian athlete N. Strunnikov twice, in 1910 and 1911, became the world champion in speed skating. The Fourth Olympic Games, held in London in 1908, turned out to be the most successful for us. Of the 6 people who took part in the competition, 3 returned with awards. ON THE. Panin-Kolomenkin won a gold medal in figure skating (this typical winter sport was included in the program of the summer games). At these games, wrestlers N. Orlov and A. Petrov received silver medals. In 1912 Russia officially competed at the Olympic Games in Stockholm for the first time. However, the recruitment of the Russian national Olympic team went very poorly. The Russian Olympic Committee, created in 1911, was inactive. The lack of necessary organizational activity led to the fact that students of the officer fencing and gymnastics school had the greatest chance of getting into the Olympic team. The best athletes from clubs and societies were not included in the Olympic team. As a result, Russia took penultimate place in the unofficial standings. Only two silver and two bronze medals were brought home by Russian athletes. After an unsuccessful performance at the Olympic Games, at the proposal of the Russian Olympic Committee, it was decided to hold sports Olympics annually. In 1913 the Olympics took place in Kyiv, and in 1914. - in Riga. The results of these competitions showed that with skillful organization and better preparation Russian athletes could have performed much more successfully at the Olympic Games in Stockholm.
Although the development of sports in Russia has advanced, it is still one-sided. Many sports were not involved in our country. There were few universal athletes. And most importantly, playing sports in Russia was very expensive. Only single talents, enthusiasts and devotees (such as cyclist M. Dyachkov, who won the English track championship, world speed skating champion A. Panshin) were able to overcome the social barriers that stood in their way.
In addition, their victories were not even appreciated. So Panin-Kolomenkin recalled with bitterness that after the triumph he had to quit performing as a figure skater so as not to irritate his superiors, who threatened him, an official, with transfer to the provinces. And the most offensive thing was that the elements invented by the Olympic champion (“special figures”) remained unused and not repeated by anyone (at that time).
russia olympic movement
