Dr.Hab., Professor E.F. Orekhov
Ural State University of Physical Culture, Chelyabinsk

Keywords: Ural State University of Physical Culture, history of university, sports glory, continuing education, theoretical and methodological support of athletes, quality of specialist training.

Ural State University of Physical Culture dates back to 1970, when by the initiative of first secretary of the Party Committee Rodionov N.I. and Director of Propaganda Department in CPSU Central Committee Tyazhel'nikov E.M. the Chelyabinsk branch of Omsk State Institute of Physical Culture was established.

Yury Katukov, who was the dean of the Faculty of Physical Education of Chelyabinsk State Pedagogical Institute at the time, was appointed director of the branch.

The first admission of students was 125 people. At first classes were held in four different places of the city: at the CHEMK Palace of Culture, in the building of the City Chess Club, at the CTZ ski base and in the "Lokomotiv" community sports hall.

A school premise under construction down the Rossiyskaya street was allocated for the institution to use as its own educational building. On December 24, 1970 the Commission accepted the building and in late December classes started to be given in the new building of the institute. The building housed educational laboratories of anatomy, physiology, biochemistry; classrooms, a 230 square meters sports hall, an assembly hall, a dining room and chairs.

The following specializations were opened: "Skating", "Track and Field", "Skiing", "Gymnastic", "Swimming", "Wrestling". The academic department of wrestling was launched.

Over the past years since the founding of the university outstanding hockey players have studied in it including: double Olympic champions Vyacheslav Bykov, Sergey Makarov and Sergey Starikov; Olympic champions Sergey Babin, Sergey Myl'nikov and Evgeny Davydov.

Graduates of our university are - double Olympic biathlon champion Svetlana Ishmuratova, double Olympic handball champion Valery Gopin, Olympic handball champion Stanislav Kulinchenko, Olympic skating champion Svetlana Bazhanova, Paralympic swimming champion Albert Bakaev, and many other domestic sports stars.

The names of Ekaterina Gamova - two-time Olympic silver medalist, Sergey Kovalev - world boxing champion, Gregory Verichev - Olympic bronze medalist are known around the world.

The medal pursuit was picked up by the present day’s students and undergraduates of UralSUPC, champions and winners of the XXX Summer Olympic Games in London in 2012 and the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi in 2014. Thus, judoka Mansur Isaev, the Olympic champion, and Anastasia Baryshnikova, the winner of the bronze medal in taekwondo, managed to write their names down into the history of the Olympic Games in London. Two years later, the main "Olympic hope" in Sochi was cheered throughout Urals. Speed skater Olga Fatkulina, undergraduate of UralSUPC, managed to come up to the expectations of her fans and won a silver medal in the 500 m distance. The student of the Bashkir Branch of UralSUPC Semion Elistratov became an Olympic champion in short track. The performance of students and university graduates at the Winter Paralympic Games in 2014 was even more impressive. In total, they have brought 8 gold, 5 silver and 5 bronze medals for the Russian team. 

The high level of preparedness in UralSUPC is proved by the fact that 78 of its graduates have been awarded the title of "Honored coach".

Even today our graduates keep winning.                                                      

It is a unique case in the history of Russian sport that 10 graduates of UralSUPC, being a part of the Russian national ice hockey team, headed by Oleg Valerievich Znark, honored coach and graduate of UralSUPC, became world champions in 2014.

Today new requirements are being imposed upon the university for its successful, long-term and effective functioning. Development of a system of continuing education are among the top national priorities. Therefore, one of the strategic objectives of UralSUPC is to promote successful development of the Urals Federal District by implementing a model of continuous education of specialists in the sphere of physical culture and sport, and thus contributing to its transformation into an advanced sports region.

The importance of UralSUPC for our region is determined by the strategy of development of physical culture and sport in Russia for the period up until 2020, according to which, one of the basic tasks of the University is improvement of human resources, scientific and biomedical support of physical culture and sports activity.

Today UralSUPC is not just the only higher education institution in the field of sport, but also the major scientific and educational center of sports and recreational activities in the Ural Federal District. Specialists of the university are members of the expert groups, developing the largest social projects and development programs in the region, such as "Strategy of socio-economic development of the Chelyabinsk region until 2020. Development of physical culture and sport", as well as the development of resort and recreational areas of the Chelyabinsk region.

Bashkir and Sterlitamak institutes of physical culture, a Ekaterinburg branch are a part of the university. About two thousands of bachelors and masters in 40 sports as well as experts in recreational technologies, economy and infrastructure of physical culture and sport graduate from the university evry year.

Today the UralSUPC material and technical base includes 4 academic buildings and two dormitories. Now the main building is being under reconstruction and it will provide additional 1,600 square meters of training area. The sports infrastructure of the university is represented by a training complex (track and field), halls of sports games, wrestling, boxing, gymnastics, a ski base. Modern computers, more than 30 classrooms equipped with multimedia kits are provided for learning in the university. The library stock is about 160 thousands of book editions. The Museum of History of UralSUPC and its Olympic Glory with the total number of exhibits exceeding 8 thousands pieces, including unique sports badges and prizes, is the pride of the university.

There has been developed a perspective development program of material-technical base of the university. It is planned to reconstruct the main building and to build an academic and sports building with a pool and an all-purpose gym by 2020.

Together not only sports, but also scientific, cultural and social achievements of students and employees of UralSUPC create its positive image. The teaching staff of the university has a high scientific potential: more than 70% of teachers have academic and honorary sports titles, degrees and more than 15% of the university academic staff are doctors and professors.

The university also provides scientific and methodological support of athletes engaged in basic sports such as athletics, hockey, judo, skating, boxing, water polo, etc.

There are 6 up-to-date scientific laboratories with modern equipment. The staff at the university has more than a dozen patents and copyright certificates.

Research and Development Institute of Olympic Sports has been opened at the university, the work of which is being carried out in three research areas: sports genetics, coaching and performance analysis in sport. The most significant achievements of the institute are creating of an athlete's genetic passport, detecting at an early stage of child's development his genetic predisposition to a particular sport and identifying risks of injury and illness in athletes.

In 2014, for the first time in Russia, the International Laboratory of Technology of On-line Monitoring of Physical Activity was established by UralSUPC in collaboration with its partners LLC "Firstbeat-ltd" (Helsinki, Finland). The laboratory is running on unique equipment that has no analogues in the world - the “Firstbeat” system.

Moreover, in 2011, the one and only in its area Inter-University Sports Volunteer Training Centre began operating at the premises of UralSUPC. Under the auspices of the university, the Centre is being actively involved in organizing and staging of major sports events both in Chelyabinsk and internationally. World and European curling, judo and speed skating championships, international taekwondo tournaments, stages of the Water Polo World League - all the major sports events in the Urals took place with the participation of volunteers from UralSUPC. Starting from 2012, the volunteer movement has expanded far beyond the borders of the region. UralSUPC volunteer students worked successfully at the World Combat Games in St. Petersburg, the World Athletics Championship in Moscow, the World Summer Universiade in Kazan, and finally, at the Olympic Games in London as well as at our "home" Winter Olympics 2014 in Sochi. According to the results of the latter 20 best volunteers of the Chelyabinsk region were awarded with letters of gratitude by Chelyabinsk Region Governor Boris Dubrovsky.

A system of continuous education in the field of physical culture and sport has been established at the university. The stage of secondary vocational education is represented by Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg Colleges of Physical Culture. At the stage of higher education, bachelors, masters and PhD students are being trained at 6 faculties and more than 30 departments. The postgraduate stage is associated with studying in the Interdisciplinary regional training center, at the High School of Coaches and the Center for Doctoral Training.

Thus, UralSUPC celebrates its 45th anniversary being a successful university, that effectively ensures the quality of education at all levels - from pre-university training up to advanced training for its graduates. All this gives grounds to rank it among the recognized leaders in sports manpower development in the Ural Federal District.

References

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Corresponding author: orehov54@mail.ru