Vladimir Putin held a Meeting of the Council for development of physical culture and sports on 11 Oct 2016 in Kovrov (Vladimir region). At the event the issues of physical education of the population and the development of mass sports in Russia were discussed.
The government of Russia plans to increase the number of Russians who regularly attend sports clubs up to 40% of the total population by to 2020. This can be achieved through active involvement of the economically active citizens in sport. And there are serious opportunities for growth, because now the share of the working-age population accounts only 15% of all sports in the country.
Drivers of growth should be the development of non-Olympic national sports and corporate sports culture, the revival of the system of voluntary musculature sports associations and the active implementation of the sports movement “Ready for labor and defense” (TRP) in the system which is already registered 3.5 million Russians.
In addition, there is a new program of development of physical culture and sports in Russia. It focuses on the construction of rapid sports facilities worth up to 100 million rubles, modernization of children’s sports schools, creation of regional centers of preparation of sports reserves.
The number of citizens actively involved in sports increased from 20 million in 2008 to 43.5 million in 2016 (32% of the population of the Russian Federation), as the government pursues a systematic policy to improve physical education and involvement of population in regular sports. Last but not least, there influenced the improvement of material and technical base of 280’000 existing sports facilities, 48’000 are new or reconstructed. Also regular mass sporting events held in the regions and municipalities (“Leather ball”, “cross the nation”, “Golden puck”, “Presidential competitions”, the all-Russian summer rural sports games and many others) positively affected the involvement of Russians in sports activities. An important and active work with children – preschoolers, schoolchildren and students – added the effect.
