THE IDEA OF HOLDING THE 2022 OLYMPIC GAMES IN UKRAINE AS A PARTY-POLITICAL PROJECT OF THE PARTY OF REGIONS OF UKRAINE

Abstract

Support of popular sports, preparation and holding of international sporting events in Ukraine is a successfully tested political and electoral technology. They were particularly actively used during their tenure in the highest public positions of V. Yanukovych, the leader of the Party of Regions (PR). The purpose of this study: to prove the hypothesis that the idea of holding the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Ukraine is a party-political project of the party of power, namely, the Party of Regions and its leader – President of Ukraine V. Yanukovych. The project was designed to find the support of the electorate during V. Yanukovych's first presidential term and his likely run for a second term.

It was established that V. Yanukovych's personal admiration for sports, combining public and sports positions, attention to the problems of sports in the election programs of the Party of Regions, aimed to form his positive image as an official. It was traced that the successful holding of «Euro-2012» in Ukraine during the presidential cadence of V. Yanukovych was perceived by members of the Party of Regions as the beginning of preparations for the Olympic Games, and the mutual «exchange» of awards between V. Yanukovych and representatives of the NOC, the IOC became an important element of Ukraine's participation in the Olympic applicant campaign. V. Yanukovych personally initiated the idea to hold the 2022 Winter Olympics in Ukraine It was revealed that this should have been facilitated by repeated reform of the central executive authorities responsible for the development of physical culture and sports. The author of the article argues that president V. Yanukovych's project to hold the Winter Olympics in Ukraine geopolitically had two directions – Russian and European. This is how it can be explained why V. Yanukovych – the only one of all presidents of Ukraine who has ever attended the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games – Sochi 2014 It was investigated that preparations for the upcoming Games had potentially high corruption risks, because the concentration of powers and financial flows exclusively in representatives of the Party of Regions gave rise to problems with transparency of the use of public funds. Attention was paid to the fact that the idea of holding the Olympic Games in Ukraine remains relevant. Thus, President V. Zelensky has already announced the idea of holding the Olympics three times already – in July, October 2019 and in July 2020.