In a matter of days, the grand opening of the 30th Summer Olympic Games will take place in London. Russians will also be among the athletes competing for the medals of this honorable sporting event.
Our masters of sports will compete in 34 types of the Olympic program. The largest representation is from Moscow (149 athletes), from the Moscow region (68) and from St. Petersburg, with 43 participants. In total, our Olympic team consists of 436 people: 208 men and 228 women. This is slightly less than at the previous Olympics: Beijing in 2008, when our team consisted of 468 people, and Athens in 2004, when the Russian team consisted of 453 people. The team is relatively young - its average age is 26. The total number of the Russian delegation, including coaches, doctors, masseurs, technical personnel, will be 804 people.
On July 13, exactly two weeks before the start of the Olympics, the submission of a roll-call application of our delegation took place. According to the rules, after that, the replacement will be possible only in case of any emergency circumstances, for example, illness or injury.
According to preliminary data, the honor of carrying the national flag of Russia at the opening ceremony of the Olympics will be entrusted to the famous tennis player Maria Sharapova. Our team is expected to fight for 3-4 place in the overall standings. The minimum task, according to the Minister of Sports of Russia V. Mutko and the head of the Russian Olympic Committee A. Zhukov, is to win 25 gold medals, the maximum task is to get 30 awards of the highest standard. Alas, for many reasons it is not necessary to expect that our team will seriously compete with the obvious favorites - the national teams of the USA and China.
The departure of the Russian national team for the Olympic Games is scheduled for July 21, and the official raising of our flag in the Olympic Village in London is for July 25. The estimated cost of our team's stay in London for the entire period of the games will be approximately 361 million rubles, including the cost of equipment, accommodation and travel.
To exclude possible scandals with doping tests, members of the Russian national team have already passed over 2000 tests. And, in addition, before departure, absolutely all athletes will undergo doping control.
