Turkmen Launch Sports Offensive
Turkmen Launch Sports Offensive
A major new programme to build sports facilities across Turkmenistan has been welcomed as a way of encouraging people to take some kind of exercise.
More than 100 sports centres and 200 schools specialising in sports are to be built by 2020.
Unveiling the scheme at a September 18 cabinet meeting, President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov also told officials to do more to support professional teams, and to institute a President’s Cup award for various kinds of sporting activity.
Reforms that Berdymuhammedov has instituted since taking office in 2007 include reviving opera, ballet and the circus – banned by his predecessor Saparmurat Niazov – extending the time spent at school and university, and restoring physical education to the curriculum.
An Olympic-standard water sports centre and the “Ice Palace” skating rink have been completed, and stadiums are being built all over the country.
Local observers say few people of any age take an active part in sports.
“Young people in the countryside don’t do sports, and there aren’t many clubs in urban areas, either,” said a commentator in Dashoguz in northern Turkmenistan. “There is a women’s sports class at the local sports centre, but it runs by itself and there’s no professional instructor.”
As physical education was dropped from the curriculum in the Niazov era, numerous trainers and sports professionals either changed job or left the country, compounding the decline in general interest in sports.
Another observer based in the eastern Lebap region says provincial sports schools and professional clubs continue to exist, but they are poorly attended.
“Even though there are stadiums and sports clubs, no sportsperson from Turkmenistan has won an Olympic medal in the last 16 years,” he said, recollecting that Altymurad Orazdurdyev was the country’s last international champion, winning world and European cups for weightlifting in 1989 and 1993.
Turkmenistan gained an Olympic silver medal for a shooting event in 1960.
“Of course sports need to be developed, but this will take more than building new stadiums,” said the commentator in Lebap.
A former sporting event judge in Turkmenabat, also in the east of Turkmenistan, fears that even when the new special schools are built, “there won’t be anybody to work there”.
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
More than 100 sports centres and 200 schools specialising in sports are to be built by 2020.
Unveiling the scheme at a September 18 cabinet meeting, President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov also told officials to do more to support professional teams, and to institute a President’s Cup award for various kinds of sporting activity.
Reforms that Berdymuhammedov has instituted since taking office in 2007 include reviving opera, ballet and the circus – banned by his predecessor Saparmurat Niazov – extending the time spent at school and university, and restoring physical education to the curriculum.
An Olympic-standard water sports centre and the “Ice Palace” skating rink have been completed, and stadiums are being built all over the country.
Local observers say few people of any age take an active part in sports.
“Young people in the countryside don’t do sports, and there aren’t many clubs in urban areas, either,” said a commentator in Dashoguz in northern Turkmenistan. “There is a women’s sports class at the local sports centre, but it runs by itself and there’s no professional instructor.”
As physical education was dropped from the curriculum in the Niazov era, numerous trainers and sports professionals either changed job or left the country, compounding the decline in general interest in sports.
Another observer based in the eastern Lebap region says provincial sports schools and professional clubs continue to exist, but they are poorly attended.
“Even though there are stadiums and sports clubs, no sportsperson from Turkmenistan has won an Olympic medal in the last 16 years,” he said, recollecting that Altymurad Orazdurdyev was the country’s last international champion, winning world and European cups for weightlifting in 1989 and 1993.
Turkmenistan gained an Olympic silver medal for a shooting event in 1960.
“Of course sports need to be developed, but this will take more than building new stadiums,” said the commentator in Lebap.
A former sporting event judge in Turkmenabat, also in the east of Turkmenistan, fears that even when the new special schools are built, “there won’t be anybody to work there”.
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
