Sports Management Commons^™

Russian Olympics, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

With the Winter Olympics finally underway is it possible that the American journalists, if we can use that term in these circumstances, will be able to write about something other than the failure of Russia to be the United States? Having traveled to Russia multiple times since the collapse of the Soviet Union, I have witnessed the remarkable transformation of this society. Caught in a time warp created by the failure of the Soviet Union, the standard of living of the average Russian trailed behind that of most of Western Europe and the United States. The Soviet Union was not …