All-Russian GTO festival: 15 new records set

For the first time for three years the All-Russian GTO Festival among students gathered participants from all parts of the country. Head of GTO Complex Implementation Department, Deputy Director General of the Directorate for Sports and Social Projects, Alexander Karpov, told about the Festival results, International Children's Center Artek, and projects for the next year.

- The All-Russian GTO Festival took place for the third time. Is it popular among the youth?

- It brings more and more people year after year. The competition to get into the team of the region is very tough: it is very prestigious to be the best in your region, in your country. In addition, the Festival takes places in a beautiful place, the International Children's Center Artek, and lots of people dream of getting there.

More than 150 000students from 85 members of the country competed for the right to represent their region. The final brought together 668 of them.

If we compare it to the previous years, in Belgorod in 2015 there were 567 participants from 75 members of the country, and in 2016, 650 students from 69 regions came to Vladimir, the numbers speak louder than words.

- The participants shared their photos from Artek in social networks. What was the programme?

- The Festival lasted for 21 days. This is a standard duration for Artek. They participated in the special Education programme "GTO Team", where we tried to share with them our knowledge in the GTO promotion among the youngsters. The participants gained their energy from the morning exercises and meetings with the GTO Ambassadors, among them — Russian Olympic Champion,  Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Svetlana Zhurova.

The administration of Artek also provided us with a few days for the walking tours, so the kids could discover the south coast of Crimea, mountains, interesting places, and participated in different entertaining activities. A part of the day the participants spent in the Artek school to catch up with the educational programme.

The Festival is a many-sided event which is not limited to the competitions only. Only a fourth of the time spent in Artek was dedicated to competitions.

- What are results of the boys and girls competing at the Festival?

- I would like to begin by saying that only the owners of the gold GTO pins were invited to Artek. We scrutinised all the applications.

So the sporting programme of the Festival aimed to reveal first amongst the best! And we did it: 5 new records among the boys and 10 records among the girls have been set.

I'll explain it in more details. We keep the score of all results of the GTO Festivals since the first one in 2013 in Belgorod.

And after comparing these results we could see that 15 competitors broke the best records in a given test.

Sevastian Shamaev from Lipetsk Oblast, for example, performed the standing long jump at 307 cm, and Valeria Gritskan of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug performed 114  push-ups.

- What is different about the Festival this year?

- First of all, the place is different. We used to change locations but now it seems that we have finally gained our residence permit — Artek — which is a place to be for every adolescent in our country!

Also, we introduced the e-judging system to fill in the score automatically. For the fast and correct identification of competitors we used the bracelets on the basis of self destructing product with a QR cod containing information about its owner.

Although experimental, this system has fully proven itself. It allowed us to avoid paperwork which led to mistakes during the filling of documents, reduce the number of judging staff, and most importantly to provide the on line access to the standings for all, including those who are not in Artek: regional ministers of sport and participants themselves.

- What are your plans for next year? What will be introduce according to the feedback received?

- During the Festival, most of tests were held at the open stadium. In Crimea it gets colder in October and November, especially in the mornings and evenings. So it was decided, and it is already agreed with the management of Artek, that the Festival will be held in the beginning of September.

Together with the management of the International Children's Center Artek we are contemplating a creation of the year-round GTO testing centre, organisation of the camp counselor training and integration of the GTO into the education programme. We also plan to introduce a Recognition Board or GTO Records Board.

In addition, next year we think to provide a live streaming to allow all interested persons to watch the event.