clarinews@clarinet.com (BENJAMIN ROE) (02/04/90)
MOSCOW (UPI) -- An unprecedented gathering this week reunited 500 of the Soviet Union's former Olympic medalists. Besides the banquets, balls and speeches, the champions were recruited for some urgent work: the restoration of Soviet amateur sports. While celebrated abroad, the Soviet sports machine has become a turn-off at home, tarred by its traditional rhetoric, sloganeering and close links with the Communist Party. Officials, coaches and athletes fret openly about falling attendance, trimmed budgets and outmoded training techniques and facilities. ``The situation has changed greatly,'' said Mikhail Krepkino, 65, who has been training athletes for more than 35 years. ``The public used to idolize sportsmen. But in the last 10 years interest has been constantly declining.'' Krepkino blamed both bureaucracy and drug scandals, both at home and abroad, for contributing to the decline. ``When parents hear of drug abuse, they just do not want their children involved,'' he said. He and his wife, Vera, a four-time Olympian who won the long-jump gold medal at the 1960 Olympics, were guests of honor at one of the legendary Soviet ``Schools of Olympic Reserve,'' designed to produce world champions. Their visit afforded a rare Western glimpse into the elite web of 55 high schools around the country that feed the vaunted Soviet sports juggernaut. The 400-student school, an hour's drive from the center of Moscow, is more selective than most American colleges, accepting about 10 percent of its applicants, according to headmaster Valeri Aseev. The principal proudly recites the school's accomplishments. ``In 19 years, we've had 1,500 graduates,'' he said. ``We've produced 800 Masters of Sport, and 440 members of Soviet National Teams. Our graduates have won 22 gold, 17 silver and three bronze medals at the Olympics.'' The school's walls are lined with trophies, plaques, slogans and pictures of Olympic champions. The centerpiece is a huge green-and white banner, emblazoned ``For the Honor of the Country, for the Glory of Sport'' above the five interlocking Olympic rings. The Krepkinos' message to the packed assembly is simple, and meant to refute any notions Soviet athletes are spoiled or privileged. ``We're not actors or artists, we're just ordinary people,'' they said. Their talk was received with polite interest until the question-and-answer session, when they were asked their opinion of drug-taking by athletes. ``Disgust,'' Vera Krepkino said. ``In our time, the only drug was black coffee. Sometimes I drank half a cup before a big match.'' Privately, school officials dismissed any notions of drug abuse by students. And they insisted Soviet athletes do not receive any of the favoritism that has inspired a backlash against their East German counterparts. ``Some privileges existed early on, but we didn't make a policy of this, like the East Germans did,'' Aseev said. ``Now, sportsmen might get a car, and an apartment, but that's just the state helping to solve social questions -- no more than that,'' he said. But all readily acknowledged the Soviet sports apparatus, called Goskomsport, is choked with appartachiks and badly needs overhauling. Some have called for its complete dismantling. ``In this time of perestroika we're trying new ways,'' Aseev said. ``But we have no one to tell us what to do.''