The Russian Olympic Assembly elected the new president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC). He became a four-time Olympic champion in fencing with sabers, a member of "United Russia" and vice president of the ROC Stanislav Pozdnyakov, TASS reported.

The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) is a union of public organizations that represents the country in the international Olympic movement. It is under the auspices of national Olympic committees that national teams take part in the Olympics.

Who supported Stanislav Pozdnyakov

44-year-old Stanislav Pozdnyakov since 2016 was the first deputy president of the ROC Alexander Zhukov, who did not stand for a new term. And before that, since 2009 Pozdnyakov was the first vice-president of the Russian Fencing Federation. Fencing in Russia since the mid-2000's. billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who now heads the International Fencing Federation. And the post of the RF Minister of Sports since 2016 is occupied by another Olympic champion in fencing and former partner of Pozdnyakov for the Russian national team - Pavel Kolobkov. Usmanov and OCD are financed. At the election conference Pozdnyakov said that the ROC is conducting with Usmanov's fund "Art, Science and Sport" talks on allocating the committee 600 million rubles. - that is, the same amount that was allocated by the fund last year.

OCD needs to concentrate on international work, Pozdnyakov said: "In April, after the Games in Pyeongchang, the IOC delegation visited us (the International Olympic Committee), discussed plans for the near future. And within the framework of the current anti-doping agenda, we decided to focus specifically on this "(quoted by TASS). He believes that it is necessary to increase the number of anti-doping events for sports federations and to improve the existing system of managing preparations for the Olympics.

 Pozdnyakov emphasizes that he has a special relationship with the Minister of Sport Pavel Kolobkov: "We have close relations, and I understand that we are expecting a consolidated position on many issues of the current sports agenda."

Who supported Alexander Popov

For the post of president of the ROC also claimed four-time Olympic swimming champion and honorary member of the IOC Alexander Popov. He was nominated by the Shooting Union, whose president is the richest Russian by the version of Forbes - chairman of the board of NLMK Vladimir Lisin. In addition, according to Popov, his candidacy was supported by the honorary president of the ROC Vitaly Smirnov.

In his program, Popov said the need for redistribution of powers in the Russian sport. For example, he believes that it is necessary to transfer salaries and scholarships of athletes, prizes and other budgets of sports of higher achievements in the ROC. "Stanislav Alekseyevich Pozdnyakov has experience working with federations, I worked for 17 years at the IOC. We rather complement each other than we resist, "Popov said in an interview with Sport Express.

Who used to lead the OCD and what did it lead to?

In May 2018, the previous president of the ROC Alexander Zhukov announced his resignation. According to him, he took this decision because of the heavy workload at the post of deputy speaker of the State Duma. Zhukov was the president of the Russian Olympic Committee from 2010. Before him, the ROC was headed by Leonid Tyagachev, he resigned after the unsuccessful performance of the Russian team at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

During the work of Zhukov in Russian sports, there was a doping scandal. The Commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA under the guidance of Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren came to the conclusion that in Russia at least from 2012 to 2015 there was a state doping program. Analyzes of athletes were substituted in the period from 2012 to 2014, including at the Olympic Games in Sochi. The commission claimed that the manipulations took place under the control of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation and the FSB. Because of this, the IOC did not allow the Russian national team to participate in the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, Russian athletes were allowed to perform only under a neutral flag, and not all of them - the IOC decided to admit it individually for each athlete. In addition, the International Olympic Committee has suspended for life dozens of Russian athletes from participating in the Olympics.

Despite the fact that no charges were brought directly against the OCD, during the Olympic Games-2018 his membership in the International Olympic Committee was suspended. After its termination, the membership of the ROC in the IOC was restored. 168 Russian sportsmen took part in the Games-2018, in the overall medal stand the team of "Olympic athletes from Russia" took the 13th place: two gold medals, six silver and nine bronze medals.