On Friday, Russia鈥檚 deputy sports minister Yuri Nagornykh said that athletes on the Russian Olympic team would be operating under a significantly reduced budget, .
Russian athletes had planned to train in Brazil in advance of the games to adjust to the tropical climate, but that has become largely unaffordable, Nagornykh said. The adjustment stands in stark contrast to the country鈥檚 investment in Sochi, where the 2014 Winter Games were held, and where spending approached $50 billion, .
Following international trade sanctions placed in the wake of Russia鈥檚 conflict with Ukraine, the ruble has suffered a perilous rate of inflation, losing almost half its value against the U.S. dollar in the past 12 months. The country鈥檚 economy may shrink 3.2 percent in the first half of 2015, the Russian central bank .
Nagornykh said restrictions would force officials to make difficult choices when deciding how to distribute funding among various athletes and various sports, predicting that the sports ministry鈥檚 tighter belt would 鈥渢est everyone鈥檚 professionalism.鈥
The good news, Nagornykh said, is that recent investments in sports facilities would help the ministry cut costs without sacrificing performance standards. 鈥淭hank God, in the last five to six years, we very seriously updated our arsenal of training bases,鈥 he said.
Nagornykh鈥檚 remarks come on the same day that Valentin Balakhnichev, the Russian athletics federation president, said he would submit his resignation at a February board meeting, . Balakhnichev made the announcement shortly after two of Russia鈥檚 most accomplished Olympians were banned from competition. The Russian anti-doping agency has concluded that Tatyana Chernova, a bronze medalist in the heptathlon, and Yulia Zaripova, a gold medalist in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, were guilty of separate doping violations. If the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) reach the same conclusion, Zaripova may be stripped of the medal she won at the 2012 Summer Games in London.