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The festival competitions took part at the Adler Arena sports centre, one of the facilities built for the Olympic Games.

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Speech at sports festival for large families From a Sport-loving Family to Olympic Victory

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, friends,

I offer my warmest greetings to everyone taking part in this festival From a Sport-loving Family to Olympic Victory. Just three months ago, these same arenas hosted the Winter Olympics. Here, at the Adler Arena, the world’s best speed skaters competed and the voices of supporters from all around the world filled the air. Today, these same facilities are being used for hosting mass sport events.

Let me stress that mass sport is not just the foundation for top-level sport and Olympic victories, but for strengthening our nation’s health. Love for sport begins from childhood, starts with the family. Love for sport is incompatible with smoking, alcohol, vodka, and all the more so drugs. Thank you very much to everyone taking part in these competitions.

We have made some progress over recent years. Another six million people have taken up regular sporting activity in Russia. This brings the number of people involved in sport and fitness up to 35 million, but this is still not enough. Over the coming five years we want to take a big stride further and get at least 40 percent of our people regularly engaged in sports and fitness.

I want to say thank you of course to the participants in today’s competitions and to the winners. I appeal to all families throughout Russia and to all officials at every level: we need to do everything we can to support sports enthusiasts such as the people here at the Adler Arena today, and we need to keep moving forward.

Thank you very much. Congratulations on your victories!