The most important thing for the future of sports is society’s ability to agree on an idea / Article

In sports, Latvians want both massiveness and high achievements, but there are no resources to ensure all of that. Therefore, it is necessary to make decisions that may not be popular, but will allow us to achieve results in the chosen path, Gulbis told Latvijas Radio in an interview.

Gulbis sees the biggest problem in the fact that there is not enough money for everyone, but there will always be a lack of it, unless it is possible to attract new resources somewhere. In the current situation, no matter how you reorganize, it would simply mean transferring a few thousand euros from one pocket to another, but it would not change the amount of money. Therefore, it is important to agree on what to spend the money on, and to follow the decisions made not only in declarations,

“I think it’s simple to understand what we’re going for. Are we going for high achievements, where we have to get some kind of medals at any cost, where the people are happy for two weeks, and then forget about it for four years. Are we still thinking about it , how to involve as many people as possible in sports. What does sport mean? It’s simply a healthy lifestyle, it’s a life span.”

Swan believes that

the state could give all the funding to 10 priority sports, from which mass production and results would then be demanded, while the rest would survive as they knew how. Or to share equally for everyone, setting other goals, but in the current situation neither one nor the other is really happening.

“In my opinion, this is the general political position of the country, there are such slogans that we need a mass organization to have healthy people, but the decisions have already been made differently,” emphasized the president of LTS.

Gulbis draws attention to deeper problems not only in the sports environment, but in society in general, where any budget is considered a cash cow or a milking pot, and the fight is on who will be able to exhaust more, either thanks to private contacts or some other tools.

Gulbis sees a different way of thinking of society in Scandinavia, where the budget of their country and any organizations is a common pocket for people, for the sake of which they are able to stand in solidarity and make decisions that may not bear fruit today and tomorrow, but in 10-20 years.

In the Olympic system, some things seem self-exhausting to the Swan.

“In the past, the Olympic Games, I think, were a little different than they are today. For many developed countries, it is not so important how many gold, silver or bronze medals there are. It is much more important if the nation is healthy, people play sports,” said the Swan. “That medal chase is either for countries like Russia and China for some of their own internal reasons, or for example America, which just has a cool show, and you can debate for two weeks where they got there with the medals.”

Gulbis is disappointed that once again the sports community has not been able to agree on something, and both the work invested in the preparation of documents and the long discussions about the merger of the LOK and the Council of Latvian Sports Federations (LSFP) are in the wind.

“Once again, we have not moved one step forward, but two steps back,” said Gulbis.

Gulbi has no idea what the future development path of leading sports organizations will be. He emphasized that this is the sports society, which reflects the whole society, and Gulbis does not want to criticize it too much, because he himself is a part of it. He wants to draw attention to the fact that there is still room for progress.