Those Were the Days.

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  • Additional Information
    • Subject Terms:
      RUSSIA
    • Subject Terms:
      FETISOV, Viacheslav; SMIRNOV, Vitaly; PUTIN, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1952-
    • Abstract:
      The article discusses the new sports czar who is trying to put his country back atop the medal standings. When we last saw the post-Communist commissars of Russian sport, they were pouting and spouting in Salt Lake City, claiming that the Olympic deck was stacked against them and vowing to pack up, go home and never come back. "Without Russia, the Olympic Games would be lost!" bellowed IOC vice president Vitaly Smirnov when the star of his country's cross-country ski team was banned from racing because her hemoglobin level was suspiciously high. Viacheslav Fetisov, a two-time Olympic champion and two-time Stanley Cup winner as one of hockey's paramount defensemen, is the latest Meester Beeg in Russian sports' epidemic of czars. Fetisov, 46, is charged with returning his nation to a position of athletic dominance. Though Fetisov is making some progress, having persuaded president Vladimir Putin to fund a sports academy for up to one million youngsters, revived the mass-participation Spartakiad movement and launched a cable-TV network dedicated to Russian athletics, his grand plans are unlikely to pay off until 2012 at the earliest.