Olympic cross-country skiing champion Veronique Stepanova In her column on , she wrote that Russia has long learned to produce high-quality products for sports and physical education enthusiasts and is gradually introducing developments for Olympic champions.
At the end of last season, Stepanova won the overall standings of the Russian Cup and also became the best in the long-distance running standings.
— In competition, when you perform at the limit of your abilities, you absolutely need the best equipment. That is the price of a fraction of a second at the finish. Such equipment costs several times more and is intended for professionals. I find that the durability of such equipment is the last thing that interests athletes.
Amateur skiers always sigh bitterly when they find out how many pairs of poles we break during the season, these are “consumables”. But they are not only made of the same material as the “Boeing wing”, but they also cost the same.
Professional equipment is produced either by small specialized companies or by “sports laboratories” within large companies. In this segment, “buying national” does not work, alas – there are no Swedish, German or American skis in the world. And the best ones are made in Austria, where things have not been going well with skiers and biathletes lately. Russian manufacturers of the same skis every now and then say that they are going to launch a professional line – and somehow everything does not work out.
But real professional equipment represents less than 1% of the market. It is clear why it is difficult and time-consuming to tinker with this. The remaining 99% are products intended for sports and physical education enthusiasts, not Olympic champions.
Yes, I need the best skis or boots in the world. But to get to the subway, you don’t need sneakers with special foam soles. To go to the canteen during a meeting, no one wears T-shirts made of special cooling fabric – they are needed for training. As a person who tries on and tests samples from dozens of different companies, I say that in Russia they make sportswear and shoes that will suit everyone, if there is no goal to win world competitions or train six hours a day. Moreover, every time I receive new samples from sponsors, I am convinced that technologists of Russian companies are not sitting idly by. Each new sample is better than last year. And you can’t compare it with samples from three years ago! — wrote Stepanova.
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Source : MatchTV
I am Sandra Jackson, a journalist and content creator with extensive experience in the news industry. I have been working in the news media for over five years. During this time, I have worked as an author and editor at various outlets producing high-quality content that attracts readers from different demographics.
