Russian Official Predicts: We’ll Get 30-40 Golds in Beijing

Like the Olympic predictions we’ve been featuring here, we will soon find out in August whether Boris Gryzlov is correct or not.

Xinhua: Russian athletes may win 30 to 40 gold medals at the Beijing Olympic Games, Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the State Duma, lower house of the parliament, said on Wednesday.

Olympic games has become the “indicator by which one can judge the quality of a country’s sport development, and the effectiveness of the money used in this field,” Gryzov was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

He said that Russia had spent more than 12 billion roubles “on the training of our athletes for participation in the Beijing games,” and have chances to rank among the world’s three best sport states.

Russian lawmakers are closely watching the training of domestic athletes, as well as the legislative support of sport development.

“Among the initiative discussed in the lower house at present are the drawing and adoption of new laws on sport training, and life insurance and health of members of Russian national teams,” the speaker said.

Russia will send a 900-member delegation to the Beijing Olympic Games in August, including 470 athletes, a senior official of the Russian Olympic Committee said last Tuesday.