Two-time Olympic biathlon champion Dmitry Vasilyev believes that athletes should not become members of the State Duma immediately after retiring from their sports careers.
“No athlete who has just finished their career has the moral right to enter the State Duma due to a lack of skills and work experience in any field. It is a mistake to say that someone like Alexander Ovechkin would immediately become an ideal deputy. I would advise him to achieve all the records first, and then he can spend the rest of his life relaxing. Ovechkin has worked very hard, but he needs to endure one more year to then enjoy life and remain an unattainable record holder,” Vasilyev stated.
“For me, there are no ideal candidates for the State Duma among athletes, even the most outstanding ones. When an athlete is professionally engaged in their sport, they are focused on physical results. They lack life and professional experience; they have never worked with laws and regulations. Not only are they unaware of these things, but they have also never had the opportunity to apply such knowledge in practice. Theory and practice are vastly different,” he added.
According to Vasilyev, any professional athlete after retirement should first gain life and professional experience: “Forget about sports and work on the ground, not be some kind of boss. There is a practice where someone is immediately appointed as the minister of sports for a region. But that person has no idea how things work—they have no knowledge. They don’t know the law on sports or federal laws. How can they then give recommendations to us, let alone write new laws? That is complete absurdity.”
Vasilyev argued that only people who have demonstrated highly effective work and managerial skills should be eligible to run for the State Duma. “It would be great to introduce a criterion of effectiveness for potential State Duma deputies,” he concluded.
