Most of Kazakhstan proud of its Olympic winners regardless of ethnic origin: poll

Olympic champions Svetlana Podobedova, Zulfiya Chinshanlo and Maya Maneza. Photo courtesy of Kazakh State University after Al-FarabiDemoscope Bureau of Express Monitoring of Public Opinion operating under the aegis of MediaNet International Center for Journalism conducted an opinion poll that showed that more than half of the respondents in are proud of the Kazakhstan athletes who won the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, regardless of their ethnic origin, Tengrinews.kz reports.

58.5% of the respondents supported the opinion that “if athletes of different ethnic origins bring medals to Kazakhstan than they are welcome to do so.”

The majority of the pollees supported the idea of inviting foreign athletes to Kazakhstan, but only 7.3% of the respondents believe that “it is worth awarding the coaches who noticed talented athletes in time and invite them to become citizens of Kazakhstan to bring the sports fame to the country.”

The respondents believe that recruitment of legionnaires should not hinder development of national sport, especially children’s sport.

Almost one third of the respondents (28%) think that “it would be better if the money that is paid to the legionnaires are injected into development of children’s and junior sport and bringing up the country’s own talents.”

However, only 2% of the pollees believe that if an athletes originates from another country's sports school than the medals he or she wins are not the merit of Kazakhstan.”

tengrinews.kz