The movement for the defense of the water sports base Vodnik on the Trukhaniv Island, access to which was finally closed for coaches and athletes in March this year, is gaining popularity in social networks. Several hundred Facebook users have posted messages on their accounts in support of the famous base where champions and prize-winners of world championships and Olympic games have been brought up for 60 years, and signatures are collected to resolve the issue with the Vodnik base.
"For any sports base and organization there is only one criterion when the state can not protect its citizens: oarsmen must row, fencers must fence, wrestlers must wrestle, boxers must box. It's time to stop destroying heritage that has been passed to us. For today, there is a group of people, and there will be more of those who are ready to do this," it is said in a massage disseminated by activists.
Let us remind you that Vodnik originally belonged to the trade union of water transport workers. However, over time, through a number of legal manipulations, ownership of property, as well as of the right to use the land plot on which the base is located, was transferred to the LLC Kolos-Sport.
The real scandal broke in March 2017, when the LLC Kolos-Sport sent letters in which they informed all sports organizations whose athletes trained at Vodnik about the need to free the base from inventory under the pretext of starting a full-scale reconstruction of the facility.
When the activists managed to enter the base, the picture that appeared before them was horrifying.
"All the coaches and athletes unanimously talk about the illegal seizure of the base. In March, for the first time after winter, they entered their territory and saw that everything was destroyed, the exercise machines were dismantled and piled, there were no pontoons that are used to put out," it is noted in the activists' message.
Another scandal broke last week during a meeting at the Ministry of Youth and Sports, where the issue of the fate of the sports facility was considered. One of the defenders of Vodnik, public figure Vitaliy Danylenko, was beaten up by the deputy head of the fitness and sports society Kolos, Vasyl Sherstnyakov, in the presence of the acting minister Mykola Danevych, his first deputy Ihor Hotsul, honored master of sports Georgii Zantaraia.
For today, not only representatives of sports and public organizations joined the struggle for Vodnik, but also well-known Ukrainian and foreign athletes: cyclist Oleksandr Polyvoda, Ukrainian swimming champion Artur Artamonov, Kazakh prize-winner of the rowing World Cup Inna Klinova, coach of the Mexican national rowing team Nikolay Chupryna, president of the National Rowing Federation of Ukraine Volodymyr Vlasenko and many others.
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