Olympic Champion Andrei Aramnau: Compete For Belarus, Not For Authorities

Problems in Belarusian sport are caused by the officials who hold positions in sports federations for which they do not fit.

The 2008 Olympic champion in weightlifting Andrei Aramnau told that in an interview to charter97.org.

– Do you follow how the Belarusian sportsmen perform at the Olympics in Rio?

– I try to watch the competitions where our sportsmen participate whenever possible.

– It’s the fourth day of the Games, but we have no medals. Even Kosovo has won one “gold” already.

– This is, as the saying runs “you reap what you sow.” There is a simple rule: a shoemaker should do boots, a firefighter should put out fires. When they mix these occupations up, they get the same results we have today.

I often speak out my opinion, but no one seem to need it. Sportsmen should do sports, while it all is mixed up in our country. Sport education is not very good here. There is a lot of knowledge, but nobody knows how to put them into practice. We need good leaders, while now… I don’t know how such can be: take me, for example – I am an Olympic champion, but I work part-time in a sports school for children. I don’t help the sportsmen to make the last step to winning the medals, but work at school. And everyone is engaged in some nonsense. Some sort of favoritism is everywhere: everywhere are someone’s brothers, sons, friends, in-laws...

But I don’t think that we will win no medals, though I guess that this Olympics will be one of the weakest for us. In fact, it’s only the fourth day. I hope we will win something.

– Belarusian sportsmen are paid $150 thousand for an Olympic gold medal. Do you consider this amount of money to be decent?

– This is an average payment for work. You see, you get it once, and then what? It would be better if they made life-long scholarships so that people didn’t disappear. So that they were not in need of at least the most simple things, if they decide to go to work part time in a sports school.

Our country seems to be so literate, but there are no normal jobs for sportsmen. It’s absolutely unclear, who works where. An Olympic champion, who is good in his sphere, has no job. What is the sense in winning the medals if they appear to have no value in the end? It’s better than to leave for some other country, to work and live happily there. I got money once and I haven’t been able to earn anything since then. They gifted me an apartment once at the Olympics and washed their hands. They added a bit of money and are like: “take a hike, Vasia!”

It turns out, people respect the athletes, but the state does not care about them. Yes, we are heroes for the people, but as for the state ... The name is familiar, so what?

There was an athlete “White Lightning” (Olympic champion in Athens 2004 Yulia Nestsiarenka). And what happened to her? Her performance was incredible, but what they did was they just slapped her in the face, so horrendous their attitude was... My situation is pretty similar.

– Does that mean that the life of the Olympic champions is not as pleasant, as we imagine?

– By all means. When I was training hard to become a champion, I was not thinking about getting apartments or money. I was just striving to win the Olympic “gold,” to prove to myself and to show the world that I was able to raise the Belarusian flag, for my country to be known and respected. My aim was to set new records, for people’s voices to tremble, saying these numbers. I did it for myself, not for the authorities. And now occasional people, who don’t have much to do with sport, get two, three, four presidential scholarships.

So many people have feathered their nests out of my Olympic medal ... People got new positions, regalia, some of them got new seats and the athlete was left with nothing. Everyone benefits, except the athletes. I wish the athletes benefited, not those people.

Now I'm working at school. How am I supposed to train children? They are not even impressed with fact that I’m an Olympic champion. What they want to do is to relax or to play computer games. They don’t see any point in lifting a barbell – “What for?”

We, the ones, who were born in the 90's, had some moral values, pride, and now the youth have none. The people in charge leave much to be desired: there’s no professional development in youth sport. In short, the boat is sinking. We used to have some Soviet heritage, but now the crisis is getting deeper every year. People stay in their seats for years and do nothing. Athletes are not engaged in jobs in their sphere.

Very often the people, who do not even live in Belarus, get the best promotion. And what about the others? Has anyone heard anything about them? At some stage I was known due to my mindset, ambitions, so, more or less, people have heard of me. But who has heard about the others? Take, for example, tennis. The money they get is not Belarusian, in biathlon the most of the money is not Belarusian, too. And they seem to be proud of it: we have tennis, biathlon ... But no one did anything to help these athletes. The money, that they get in Belarus, go to charity, because it is practically nothing.

Why don’t they value the athletes, who live in Belarus, in their cities? Take our BATE, for example. How many of them are from Barysau? We spend money, but do not invest in our own people. It’s a kind of corruption.

An honest person finds it difficult to survive in this country. I repeat, everyone should do his own job. The person, who is not fond of sports, will never be able to develop it. I do not think that if a good athlete is put in charge of a sport, he will ruin it. He will spread himself for this sport! When occasional people are put in charge, what can you expect?

There is an anecdote. “The fire inspection comes to the Olympic center“(Minister of Sport and Tourism of Belarus Aliaksandr Shamko – a former firefighter and the deputy head of the Emergency Situations Ministry). It’s a true story.

– What do you wish to our athletes in Rio?

–I wish our athletes not to lose heart, to do their best not for the sake of their bosses, but for our Belarusian land. For everyone in the world to get to know about our country and for us to carry our flag proudly. We are a young country, everything must change. The country is at its puberty age, as they say. It’s about 20 years old. I wish our athletes luck despite of anything. We are the ones who will be building the state.