About the book: 2014 / In Ancient Greece, monuments were erected to Olympic champions during their lifetime. In the 20th century, big sport became big politics. John Kennedy once said on this occasion: “The importance of a country is determined by the number of nuclear warheads and Olympic gold medals won.” Indeed, the USSR and the USA closely followed each other’s sporting successes and waged a fierce struggle for championship in sports. The book by Arseny Zamostyanov talks about the Olympic confrontation between the two superpowers. This is a detailed and colorful chronicle of Soviet sports, a history of victories and achievements of generations, each of which can proudly say about itself: “Made in the USSR!” The author compares two Olympics - the Moscow 1980 and Sochi 2014. And the comparison is not in favor of the latter. Sport in the USSR was, along with space exploration, aviation, and the military industry, one of the areas in which the Soviet state proved its competitiveness with world leaders and defeated them. Olympic Sochi has become a symbol of a wasteful economy, insulting and burdensome to the people. Only a dependent or a thief can throw money away like this. And yet, in spite of everything, we believe: Russia will yet become a sports superpower!