or1980v2pt1

Training the Soviet Judges,
the Auxiliary Personnel, and
the Service Workers
In 1976 in order to draw the most
qualified Soviet referees into working
at the Games and to train them in the
best possible way, the OCOG-80 together
with the USSR sports federations
announced a national "Olympic
Referee" competition in various
sports.
In the three years that followed
over 500,000 summer-sport referees,
including 3,500 national-category and
nearly 12,000 republican-category referees,
took part in this competition.
While officiating events, the referees
who had entered this competition
perfected their methods, studied
referee terminology in the official languages
of the corresponding IFs and
took part in seminars.
The competition had three rounds:
the first was in 1976, the second in
1977 and the third in 1978.
Committees were set up all over
the country which together with the
sports federations of the USSR and
the board of referees and judges in
Olympic sports began training referees
in order to pick out the best of
them.
With the beginning of the competition
the number of special seminars
for referees held in the USSR increased
considerably and their quality
improved. Over 1,000 seminars were
held annually in the Union republics
alone. Seminars on the eve of the
events proved particularly helpful. Of
great importance were the analysis of
the events and the summary reports
made by the main judges at sessions
of the presidiums of the national
boards of referees and judges.
In 1977-1979 international seminars
of referees handling a number of
sports (shooting, cycling, rowing,
archery, athletics, weightlifting, fencing,
etc.) were held in the USSR and
other countries. Many of the Soviet
referees went at this time to major
international competitions which
helped increase their experience.
In all three rounds of the "Olympic
Referee" competitions the best referees
were picked out by using objective
criteria to judge their marks. The
referee's work was evaluated by the
amount of points he received for his
refereeing.
From the results of the three
rounds the jury determined 1,042 competition
winners among whom were
national- and international-category
referees.
Alongside the competition winners
2,600 of the most qualified Soviet
referees were selected. These had
helped officiate the VII USSR Summer
Spartakiade and then most of them
went on to work at the 1980 Olympics
(mainly as auxiliary personnel).
211
Programmes and methodological
material were worked out for seminars
attended by the Soviet judges and
referee auxiliary personnel, as well as
for the seminars they had attended
during the VII Summer Spartakiade of
the Peoples of the USSR, and official
instructions were also drawn up.
At the VII USSR Summer Spartakiade
the judges and referee auxiliary
personnel demonstrated that
they were highly trained, organised
and disciplined, and were thus highly
commended by the IF officials present
at the Games.
It was the opinion of the IF officials
that the 396 Soviet referees included in
the number of IF technical officials
and jury members (from 80 Soviet
cities) and the 1,894 Soviet referee
auxiliary workers at the Games, successfully
tackled their duties.
The Soviet judges and the referee
auxiliary personnel were brought together
in the events support service,
set up by the beginning of the Games
under the Sports Department.
Besides this, five more services
were set up: the main secretariat, the
sports information service, the doping
control, the training provision service,
and that working with the suppliers of
sports and technical facilities.
The events support service was the
biggest employing 3,663 people. It was
based on the directorates of various
sports.
The main secretariat service,
whose task was to receive and process
NOC applications and the results
of the events, consisted of 128 staff
workers.
The sports information service (128
workers) united 20 information and
reference points situated in the Olympic
Village, and a section whose job
was to prepare material for broadcasting
and the scoreboard.
The doping control at the Olympic
Village was effected under the guidance
of the IOC Medical Commission
by a service consisting of 152 doctors,
laboratory workers, medical nurses,
assistants and computer specialists
working at the Doping Centre and its
stations.
The training provision service (331
workers) drew up training time tables.
As has already been noted, part of
the referee-information apparatus and
sports gear and equipment was supplied
for the Games by foreign firms.
During the Games some of this equipment
was serviced by specialists from
these firms. The service working with
the suppliers of sports and technical
facilities helped them, supervised the
installation of the referee-information
apparatus, trained the necessary workers,
published technical documenta-