Belarus is among the top twenty strongest sports powers in the world based on junior championships

December 4, Vitebsk / Sergey Kochetov - BELTA /. Belarus consistently ranks among the top 20 strongest sports nations in the world based on the results of junior championships. This was announced by Deputy Minister of Sports and Tourism Dmitry Shichko today in Vitebsk at the republican seminar of the NOC of Belarus, BELTA correspondent reports. From 2005 to the present, the country's youth, junior, and cadet teams have won 1,168 medals at world and European championships, including 574 in Olympic sports. "Considering the approximately equal number of competitions for adult athletes, our closest reserve has won about 58% of all medals won by Belarusian athletes," emphasized Dmitry Shichko. This indicates that the country has a dynamically developing, competitive system for training sports reserves. The basis of this system is 503 specialized educational and sports institutions and Olympic reserve schools. They train about 190,000 students, or almost every sixth student in the country. The educational and training process is conducted by over 9,000 coaches. Olympic Youth Days, Spartakiads, and republican championships in 62 sports are held annually in the country. More than 50,000 students of sports schools participate in regional championships, and over 22,000 young athletes compete in republican competitions. At the same time, the sports reserve training system is constantly being improved; 16 Olympic reserve centers have been created in the last Olympic cycle alone. Increased attention is paid to the development of sports infrastructure in rural areas. Recently, in 240 settlements, over 500 additional training groups in 25 sports have been opened in sports schools. -0-