The Minister of Sport and Tourism summed up the participation of Polish athletes in the Olympic Games in London
– This is a multiannual plan and will bring effects only after some time – said Joanna Mucha, the Minister of Sport and Tourism, on Tuesday during a conference that summed up the participation of Polish athletes in the London Olympic Games.
Beside the Minister of Sport and Tourism, the conference was attended by Jacek Foks, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Sport and Tourism, Paweł Słomiński, Head of the Support Team of the Polish Team London 2012 and the members of an open team that is to co-operate with the Ministry in matters concerning the changes in the Polish sport: Witold Roman, Grzegorz Kotowicz, Kajetan Broniewski, Jerzy Eliasz, Sebastian Chmara and Paweł Januszewski.
– It is an open team, and every person willing to co-operate and support the plan of Polish sport’s recovery is invited to co-operate – said Joanna Mucha.
For the first time, the athletes were preparing to the London Olympic Games relying on a programme entitled “Poland Club – London 2012”, developed by the Ministry of Sport and Tourism. It covered the best Polish athletes (medallists of the previous Olympic Games and World Championships). The programme specified the rules for financing of players’ preparations and monitoring of their training.
After the performance of our athletes during the 30th Olympic Games in London, we can say that the objectives of the “Poland Club – London” project should be considered a good direction for development, and project management in preparations for international events is a solution currently used by sport powers. We should follow their example. It should be pointed out that 80% of the medals won in London were won by the Club members. What is most essential now is the co-operation with sport associations regarding detailed information on how to improve the functioning of the entire project.
First of all, it is the time to introduce changes in the financing of sport associations. Financing and support for everything results in failure to finance and support anything. Within the next year, the Ministry will develop rules of financing for precisely specified tasks and after meeting specific conditions.
Besides, sport associations should focus, in particular, on the system to identify talents and to work with them at the stage of school and university sport, in clubs and national teams. Only when combined in an efficiently functioning mechanism will all these elements guarantee success in the form of good performance of Polish athletes during major international events.
– In order to remedy the Polish sport we should think of it as a system of communicating vessels – said Joanna Mucha. – Currently, universally popular sport is a priority; without it, nothing good will happen – summed up the Minister.
It is also of major importance to generate conditions for enhancement of coaches’ skills and to create better conditions and pay for coaches working in clubs. Co-operation with territorial self-governments will be most essential in this respect.
It is also necessary to diagnose the training process. Its results are supposed to serve as benchmarking data for the coaches and research teams in order to regulate that process and to represent an element of project management.
The Minister of Sport and Tourism plans to increase the funds earmarked for the activities of the Anti-Doping Commission and for the Anti-Doping Laboratory. In addition, attention should be paid to the problem of admitting the Polish athletes to buy and use drugs of unknown origin or drugs that contain prohibited ingredients (referred to as contaminated).
When preparing a national team for future Olympic Games, we should be also guided by the principle of “quality over quantity”. A team composed of many members that can be seen mostly beyond the scoring places is nothing to be proud of. Olympic Games should serve the promotion of a country through highest level sports competition, instead of broadcasting of further failures.
Therefore, the Polish sports associations should immediately develop and implement strategies on preparations for the next two Olympic Games: a short-term strategy (for the Olympic Games in 2016) and a long-term strategy (for the Olympic Games in 2020). The strategic goal of preparations for Olympic Games should be to make a specific number of athletes reach a sports level that enables them to effectively compete for medals.