The Russian Olympic officials are now finding themselves in the cross hairs of the President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who has called for an immediate resignations of these top officials, who are now being blamed for the despicable performance of the Russian sport teams at the 2010 Winter Olympics, held in Vancouver, Canada. In a statement, Mr. Medvedev has put the blame squarely on the sports officials, whom he refereed to as “fat cats” and has further stated that, the nation’s sports system needs a complete overhaul.

At the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Russian team only managed to get the 11th spot, with an accumulated three gold, five silver and seven bronze medals, an extremely poor performance considering the standards set by the Russian teams in previous such events. Furthermore, this year’s disastrous performance is the worst of its kind for Russia in the last 100 years, since the country began participating in the Winter Olympics in the year 1912. For one of most momentous sporting events of this year, the Russian government had spared no effort in promoting its Winter Olympics teams, with a mass influx of money, patriotic speeches and other high profile means of promotion.

However, Mr. Medvedev has assured those athletes who have won gold medals in their respective categories that, their efforts will not go in vain and, the President himself will award these athletes with government awards and appreciations.

According to Dmitry Medvedev,

“Unprecedented investments are being made in sports in Russia, but money is not everything. We need to think about how we change our training methods. The new training system should focus on athletes who should be put at its cornerstone, not sports federations and their executives — and not even the trainers, with all our great respect to them. Athletes are those who bring victories, and they should become the focus of our attention.”

Via CNN