At the Cabinet session held on 7 September, 2018 President Gurbanguly Berdymukahmmedov address the development of sports in Turkmenistan and acknowledged that “approaches towards sports need to be reviewed and updated”.
The state information agency TDH reports that as viewed by the head of the state, “the world best practices need to be examined in-depth to unleash Turkmenistan’s sports potential and for this reason coaches and sports referees need to have internship or attend advanced training courses in the leading sports centres overseas”.
It should be highlighted that the 2018 Asian Games which were closed in Indonesia on 2 September turned out to be a disaster for the Turkmen team, which won only three medals and ranked 32 out of 45 countries.
These results are in sharp contrast with the results of V Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, which were held in 2017 in Ashgabat.
In their home country the athletes held the record by a wide margin winning 245 medals whereas the closest contender China’s team took home only 97 medals.
Moreover, Turkmenistan remains the only country in the post-Soviet area which has not a single Olympic medal, and the majority of professional athletes are unable to compete in large-scale international sports contests.
The problems of Turkmen sports are the factors hindering its development are covered in the new podcast posted by “Chronicles of Turkmenistan”.