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Weightlifting: Greek federation fighting uphill battle
By Chris Galakoutis
| Thursday, November 9 2006 11:08:59 PM |
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The international federation’s website continues to list Greece as a weightlifting superpower; a testament to the decade-plus successes of the 1990's “Dream Team” that supplanted the former USSR nations as tops in men's weightlifting.
But Greece is no longer alone at the top. Chinese lifters have made tremendous gains in recent years, taking a large number of medals at this year's world championships.
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Yet despite the emergence of this new powerhouse and with less than 1% of China's population, Greece continues to produce world-class lifters such as Nikos Kourtidis, Dimitris Papageridis, Vladimiros Lazaridis and others; lifters who could be fighting for medals at Beijing 2008.
Such ongoing success would come in spite of the financial situation the team finds itself in these days; a reality one would think improbable for a team that was on top of the world just a few short years ago.
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"Unfortunately the amount of funding that our federation receives has been reduced significantly the last three years," said Nikos Skiadas, president of the Hellenic Weightlifting Federation, when contacted today in Athens.
National team head coach Christos Iakovou alluded to this very issue recently on Greek radio, noting that the team used to receive 3 million euros per year, but receives only 1.9 million today. And as he has done repeatedly the last couple of years, Mr. Iakovou continued to stress the importance of government support.
In Greece, sport falls under the protection of the State, which supervises it through the General Secretariat for Sport, a subdivision of the Ministry of Culture. The State is responsible for the organization, operation and most importantly, the funding of sport.
Sports funding, however, is a serious issue these days in Greece, as Athens 2004 saddled the government with enormous debts. As part of the post-Olympics debt clean up, funding has been hard to come by and many venues have been shut down - including the jewel of Hellenic weightlifting known as Nikaia Hall - awaiting lease opportunities from commercial interests.
It is no secret that the “Dream Team” enjoyed its finest moments - as well as solid funding - during the years that the former government was in power. That all changed in 2004, however, when "PASOK" lost the national elections just prior to the Athens Olympic Games.
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