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Lukashenka dissatisfied with Belarus’ performance at Vancouver Olympics

Alyaksandr Lukashenka criticized the performance of Belarusian athletes in certain sports at the ongoing Vancouver Olympics while taking part Saturday in the Minskaya Lyzhnya cross-country ski festival at the Rawbichy winter sports center near Minsk.

The Belarusian leader said he was disappointed at the fact that “we have not achieved the results that we could achieve considering the attention that is given to sports in our country.”

“The team play very bad,” Mr. Lukashenka said of the Belarusian ice hockey squad, which suffered two consecutive losses, to Finland (5-1) and to Sweden (4-2).

“This reveals shortcomings in the work of the coaching staff and the hockey federation,” he noted.

“The performance of our skiers is awful,” he said. “It is not the first year that we have suffered a fiasco in cross country…. Is it impossible to select 20 or 30 new gifted skiers?”

Mr. Lukashenka noted that he had predicted such performance but hoped for better things. “And these better things have happened in biathlon,” he added.

Belarus has won two medals, a silver in men’s biathlon and a bronze in women’s biathlon, at the Olympics.

Belarusians still stand a chance of winning medals “if referees are well-disposed,” Mr. Lukashenka said.

The Games in Vancouver are an “occasion for serious analysis and specific conclusions,” he said. “Today we can do better in all sports.”