Russia Fumes Over Olympic Teams' Showing

In the wake of Russia's not so ideal performance at the 2010 Winter Olympics, Medvedev has chosen to lash out at the trainers and the trainers have lashed out at their athletes. Medvedev stated that those to blame for the athletes poor performance must take responsibility. The coaches, trying to sway the blame, have placed the fault on the athletes. “Let’s put up a bunch of guillotines and gallows,” said Vyacheslav Bykov, the team’s coach, responding to a reporter’s suggestion last week that the hockey team might not have seriously prepared. “We have 35 people on the hockey team. Let’s go to Red Square and dispatch with them all.” Medvedev is typically known by his people as a more level headed man, but his frustration is most likely related to the fact that Russia is set to hold the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Russia, whose teams have in former years been known to steal the show, only took home three gold medals at the Vancouver games. Russia, on top of their current political and economic problems, now has to channel sizeable funds into the next olympic games, creating a stressful situation for Medvedev, the coaches, the athlets and the people of Russia.

This article says alot about foreign relations in Russia. It is a quite unprofessional for Medvedev and the Russian coaches to behave so rashly at an event that is supposed to bring all the countries of the world together. This is not good for the Russia's reputation with the rest of the world, because I think that other countries would be concerned to interact with a country who responds so ruthlessly when events do not play out in their favor. I think that this would also cause the people of Russia to question their safetly and the government's legitimacy, because the government chose to put so much blame on their people for events that were out of their control.