Penza, 12 March 2014. PenzaNews. Penza skiers are needed in other regions of the Russian Federation, but not at home. This opinion was expressed by the director of Children's and Youth Sports School No. 4, the regional cross-country skiing federation president Sergei Mezentsev.
“Among the juniors I can distinguish Alexandra Bezina. We were not able to finance her here and had to let her participate in a parallel competition in Mordovia. They gave her good allowance, and she was able to take part in the trainings in Finland and Austria. As a result, the year earlier, the skier scored at the Volga Federal District Universiade performing for a non-native region. Because of this that year our school did not receive financial support to purchase sports inventory. Another athlete — Nikita Surkov from Nikolsk — continued his career in Tatarstan. He is now in the national junior team, he participated in the World Cup Championship,” Sergei Mezentsev pointed out.
According to him, the main obstacle for the development of cross-country skiing is financing.
“Professional sport involves almost year-round fees. We have no funding — neither for sports inventory, nor for ski wax. All in all, this year we received 30 thousand rubles for the preparations, and this will cover one training at the most,” the regional cross-country skiing federation president noted.
Sergei Mezentsev also suggested that the new ski stadium can appear in Penza not before 2020.
“The most suitable place for a ski stadium is the so-called “Lokatory.” It is in the outskirts. There is the road leading there, the place is used to store snow from the city streets. A military unit used to locate there. It has four large hills. The best of places. Nothing has to be altered. It has the tracks going past the hills. 10-20 km and more can be covered on the plain. We invited experts from Moscow, who found that the hills are suitable for conducting high level competitions — Russian championships. The place has is perfect for ski-roller tracks. Two meetings in the regional government has already held on this issue. The city administration was given the task to find out whom this land belongs to. This is the most important thing for us,” he explained.
Sergei Mezentsev also clarified that the existing ski area “Snezhinka” is on the site designated for the secondary school with a sports-ground which, according to him, can be built no earlier than 10 years.
“In any case we will be gratuitous tenants of the object. That means that the skiers are not the owners yet again,” the Internet service “” quoted Sergei Mezentsev.
