PhD, Associate Professor A.A. Shakhov¹
PhD, Associate Professor A.I. Egorov²
PhD R.M. Olkhovskiy^2
1Yelets State Ivan Bunin University, Yelets
²Russian Student Sports Union, Moscow

Keywords: academic sports, Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association, Lipetsk Oblast, history, progress avenues.

Background. Quality academic physical education and sport service is ranked among the top-priority national and social policies geared to improve the student health standards, facilitate the personality progress and expand the sport reserve for the national sport elite. Lately the government has given a special priority to the national sport sector on the whole and the academic sports system in particular. Thus in 2013 Kazan hosted the XXVII World Summer Universiade; and in 2019 Krasnoyarsk hosted the XXIX World Winter Universiade. The Lipetsk Oblast academic sport system has made progress on the national and global arenas for the last few years although its resource is still far from being mobilized in full. We made an attempt herein to analyze and outline the most promising ways for further progress of the regional academic physical education and sports based on the past Soviet and modern experience of national academic physical education and sport service system.

Objective of the study was to analyze the most promising progress trends of the academic sports in Russia based on a historical analysis, with the Lipetsk Oblast academic sports system taken for the case study.

Methods and structure of the study. We analyzed for the purposes of the study the Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association and regional universities’ archives for the period of 1967-1986 and questioned many witnesses and contributors to the academic physical education and sport movements and system. 

Results and discussion. It should be confessed that the academic sports system in the Soviet times was flourishing. Thus in 1957 the national Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association was established to improve the academic physical education and sport system for health and physical progress of students and faculties. The Lipetsk Oblast Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association office was launched in the early 1967 and was first headed by V.I. Dvurechensky and then by D.N. Makushin in 1968-1986. From the very first days of its operations and till the late 1980ies, the Lipetsk Oblast Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association played the key role in the regional physical education and sport progress. Our analysis of the Lipetsk Oblast Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association history showed that many of its service models may be successful nowadays. Thus the Lipetsk Oblast Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association not only coordinated the academic physical education and sport in the regional higher education system (dominated by Lipetsk State Pedagogical Institute, Lipetsk Polytechnic Institute, and Yelets State Pedagogical Institute), but also maintained its own Youth Sports School that gave a special priority to the track and field sports plus judo (since the mid-1980s).

In addition, special sport classes with an extended day and special outdoor trainings were offered to grades 8–10, plus school sports clubs under control and supervision of the Lipetsk Oblast Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association. These programs facilitated selections of the underage prospects for sports to offer them long-term sport trainings continued at universities, and on the whole this system heavily contributed to the academic sports and their competitiveness. The Lipetsk Oblast Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association office appointed university sports instructors  responsible for qualifications to and trainings of the university picked teams for competitions in the university, regional and federal academic games. These competitions provided extra motivations for progress of the academic sports system on a friendly and fair basis [2-5]. 

The Lipetsk Oblast Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association system budget was funded by the membership dues (about 2% of the total) and Regional Trade Union Council (98%) in a quite significant amounts. Thus budgets of 1968, 1974, 1979 and 1985 were reported at 16, 40, 70 and 100 thousand rubles, respectively. As a result, the Voluntary Sport Association could comfortably finance the extensive local training system, costs of competitive events, training camps all over the USSR, procurements of the necessary sports equipment and accessories, and cover every progress need of the system [2-5]. To promote the habitual academic physical education and sport practices, the decision-makers established regional university games with competitions starting from the university department level. This policy resulted, for example, in 60% of the total regional university population involved in competitions in the academic year of 1973-74 [3].

It should also be mentioned that the Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association policy-making process was rather democratic, with many academic sports club leaders, physical education and sport department heads, physical education and sport instructors, student team leaders, university managers, faculty activists and heads of other sports associations and agencies contributing to the policies and solutions in every domain [2-5]. One of the key missions of the academic Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association system was to both popularize the academic physical education and sports and the GTO Complex competitions motivated by the GTO badges, and also encourage qualifications of the academic athletes, masters of sports, sport referees and amateur instructors [2-5].

After breakdown of the Soviet Union and its political and economic system, many sports associations collapsed with a heavy detriment to the academic physical education and sport system, and the Burevestnik Voluntary Sport Association system was partially inherited by the Russian Student Sports Union. Nowadays the Russian Student Sports Union holds the Russian Winter and Summer Universiades, Russian Student Sport Festivals, Russian Student Sports Union Sport Championships, and forms the national teams for the World Universiades (WU) and the European and World Student Championships. These sport events are listed in the Sports Calendar of the Russian Federation. We should mention many other public organizations that contribute to the national academic physical education and sport service including the Association of Russian Student Sports Clubs, Russian Student Judo League, Student Basketball Association, National Student Football League, National Student Chess League, Russian Student Badminton Association, etc.

Presently the Lipetsk Oblast government hosts the traditional annual Student Sport Universiade with the arm-wrestling, weightlifting, fitness aerobics, basketball, volleyball, futsal, table tennis and other events. The regional academic sport leaders compete in the annual Russian Student Sports Festivals and other academic sport events on the national and global arenas. It has become traditional to celebrate the International Student Sports Day on September 20. Thus the 2018 ISSD was celebrated by 12 Lipetsk Oblast municipalities with 3,000 participants from the local vocational and higher education establishments. Success of the event was acknowledged by the Russian Student Sports Union, with the Lipetsk Oblast Government awarded “For hosting the Russian and International Student Events in 2018”.

The following state establishments may be called the leaders of the academic physical education and sport service in the Lipetsk Oblast nowadays (and is Soviet times): Yelets State Ivan Bunin University; Lipetsk State Pedagogical University named after P.P. Semenov-Tien-Shansky and Lipetsk State Technical University. Private universities are lagging far behind in the numbers of students and faculties, sports infrastructure, sports traditions and many other aspects.

It may be also pertinent to mention that two Lipetsk Oblast universities of the above, namely I.A. Bunin YSU since 1992 and  since 1970, has been training top-skilled athletes and physical education and sport specialists that heavily contributed to progress of the regional physical education and sport system. The Lipetsk Oblast universities has trained many national sport leaders including S. Dugin, World Student Judo Champion of 1980; I. Shkarin, World Student Judo Champion of 1987; I. Barabulkina, World Student Judo Champion of 1988; I. Makarenko, World Student Sambo Championship bronze medalist of 1994; D. Savchishkin, World Universiade silver medalist in judo of 1999; A. Kharitonova, Sambo Champion of the 2013 World Universiade; T. Kovalenko, bronze medalist of the 2017 World Universiade in judo; etc.

However, wins of the Lipetsk Oblast academic athletes in the Russian and World student events have been on decline for the last few years, and this regress urges the Lipetsk Oblast universities and Lipetsk Oblast government look for the ways to encourage the academic sports in the region. The efforts to find solutions should be naturally governed by the reference points set forth by Russian Academic Sports Development Concept for the period up to 2025 [1] which requires to increase the student population engaged in the habitual physical education and sport; increase the qualifications for and successes in the GTO Complex tests; expand the student sports club system; increase the number of universities participating in the Russian qualifications and competitions; offer advanced training courses to the academic physical education and sport instructors; broader involve the Russian regions in finals of the Russian Winter and Summer Universiades and Russian Student Sport Festivals etc.

We believe that the above goals may be attained in the Lipetsk Oblast by the following top-priority initiatives. First, the regional academic sports management needs to be consolidated, with the Regional Student Sports Administration taking responsibility for supervision of the academic physical education and sport service in the region. This step will put the decision-making in the physical education and sport system on a consistent and systematic basis to encourage healthy competition and improve the Lipetsk Oblast academic sports budgeting policies and practices. Second, it will be beneficial to encourage early sport identification, selection and training since the first school days to effectively improve the skill levels of the future students. The efforts to secure due succession in the athletic careers will be facilitated by special sports groups at universities for students of the local secondary school and colleges, with such sport classes supervised and supported by the academic physical education and sport management, joint projects with the local Youth Sport Schools etc.

Conclusion. The study data and analyses made it possible to highlight the most promising progress trends for the academic sports in Russia based on a historical analysis of the academic sports progress in the Lipetsk Oblast.

References

1. Order of the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation dated July 2, 2018 No. 620 “On approval of an action plan for the implementation of the concept of development of student sports in the Russian Federation for the period until 2025”. Available at: http://www.consultant.ru/cons/cgi/online.cgi?req=doc&base=EXP&n=679029#0... (date of access: 25.12.2018)
2. Minutes, resolutions, transcripts, questionnaires of delegates and other materials of the 3rd Regional Conference of the DSO "Burevestnik" for 1968, GANILO, F. 2570, D. 7.
3. Minutes of the meeting of the presidium of the Lipetsk regional council of the Stormy day-to-night meeting “Burevestnik” for 1975, GANILO, F. 2570, D. 71.
4. Minutes of meetings of the Presidium of the Regional Council DSO "Burevestnik" for 1980, GANILO, F. 2570, D. 119.
5. Minutes, decrees of the presidiums and materials of DSO "Burevestnik" for 1985, GANILO, F. 2570, D. 173.

Corresponding author: shakhov-art@yandex.ru

Abstract

Quality academic physical education and sport service is ranked among the top priority national and social policies geared to improve the student health standards, facilitate personality progress and expand the sport reserve for the national sport elite. In addition, academic sports are considered an indispensable element of any national sport system as their accomplishments and standards heavily contribute to the national sports image. Presently the national academic athletes are ranked among the world leaders although the growing completion from the leading sport nations force the national sport theory and practice to persistently and actively search the ways for progress of the regional and national academic sports. The Lipetsk Oblast academic sport system has made some recent progress on the national and global arenas although its resource is still far from being mobilized in full. The study offers a historical analysis with a special attention to the modern academic sports development trends in Russia and demonstrates the academic sports promotion policies and practices by the Lipetsk Oblast academic sport system and its potential progress avenues. The regional policies are recommended to secure further consolidation of the academic sports management system with a special attention to the academic sport reserve trainings starting from the school days.