Editing Soviet Union (section)

== Sport ==
{{See also|Voluntary Sports Societies of the Soviet Union|CSKA Moscow|Soviet Union at the Olympics|Soviet Union men's national ice hockey team}}
[[File:RR5110-0098R.png|thumb|[[Valeri Kharlamov]] represented the Soviet Union at 11 [[Ice Hockey World Championships]], winning eight gold medals, two silvers and one bronze.]]
In summer of 1923 in Moscow was established the [[Dynamo Sports Club|Proletarian Sports Society "Dynamo"]] as a sports organization of Soviet secret police [[Cheka]].

On 13 July 1925 the [[Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]] adopted a statement "About the party's tasks in sphere of physical culture". In the statement was determined the role of physical culture in Soviet society and the party's tasks in political leadership of physical culture movement in the country.

The [[Soviet Olympic Committee]] formed on 21 April 1951, and the [[IOC]] recognized the new body in its [[List of IOC meetings|45th session]]. In the same year, when the Soviet representative Konstantin Andrianov became an IOC member, the USSR officially joined the [[Olympic Movement]]. The [[1952 Summer Olympics]] in Helsinki thus became first Olympic Games for Soviet athletes. The Soviet Union was the biggest rival to the United States at the Summer Olympics, winning [[Soviet Union at the Olympics#Medals by Summer Games|six of its nine appearances at the games]] and also topping the medal tally at the Winter Olympics six times. The Soviet Union's Olympics success has been attributed to its large investment in sports to demonstrate its superpower image and political influence on a global stage.<ref name="Benson">{{cite web |url=http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/russia-and-its-empires/tyler-benson/ |website=BU Blogs |first1=Tyler |last1=Benson |title=The Role of Sports in the Soviet Union &#124; Guided History |access-date=8 March 2021 |archive-date=22 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141022002522/http://blogs.bu.edu/guidedhistory/russia-and-its-empires/tyler-benson/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

The [[Soviet Union national ice hockey team]] won nearly every [[Ice Hockey World Championships|world championship]] and [[Ice hockey at the Olympic Games|Olympic tournament]] between 1954 and 1991 and never failed to medal in any [[International Ice Hockey Federation]] (IIHF) tournament in which they competed.

Soviet Olympic team was notorious for skirting the edge of amateur rules. All Soviet athletes held some nominal jobs, but were in fact state-sponsored and trained full-time. According to many experts, that gave the Soviet Union a huge advantage over the [[United States]] and other Western countries, whose athletes were students or real amateurs.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/07/21/archives/soviet-amateur-athlete-a-real-pro-dr-john-nelson-washburn-is-an.html |title=Soviet Amateur Athlete: A Real Pro |newspaper=The New York Times |date=21 July 1974 |last1=Washburn |first1=J. N.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-22-sp-30740-story.html |title=Sports in Soviet Union Only for Elite : There Are Top Athletes, and then There Are Those Who Sunbathe and Watch Drawbridges Go up |website=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=22 July 1986}}</ref> Indeed, the Soviet Union monopolized the top place in the medal standings after 1968, and, until its collapse, placed second only once, in the [[1984 Winter Olympics|1984 Winter games]], after another Eastern bloc nation, the [[GDR]]. Amateur rules were relaxed only in the late 1980s and were almost completely abolished in the 1990s, after the [[fall of the USSR]].<ref name="Benson"/><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A005600130009-0.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170123110037/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00810A005600130009-0.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=23 January 2017 |title=Info |website=www.cia.gov}}</ref>

According to British journalist [[Andrew Jennings]], a [[KGB]] colonel stated that the agency's officers had posed as anti-doping authorities from the [[International Olympic Committee]] (IOC) to undermine [[doping test]]s and that Soviet athletes were "rescued with [these] tremendous efforts".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0292739575 |title=Drug Games: The International Olympic Committee and the Politics of Doping |first=Thomas M. |last=Hunt |year=2011 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-0-292-73957-4 |page=66}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.rferl.org/a/the-1980-moscow-olympics-rank-as-the-cleanest-in-history-athletes-recall-how-the-u-s-s-r-cheated-the-system-/30741567.html |title=The 1980 Olympics Are The 'Cleanest' In History. Athletes Recall How Moscow Cheated The System. |last1=Aleksandrov |first1=Alexei |last2=Aleksandrov |first2=Grebeniuk |last3=Runets |first3=Volodymyr |publisher= |date=22 July 2020 |website=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty |access-date=26 December 2021}}</ref> Documents obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the [[1984 Summer Olympics]] in Los Angeles. Dated prior to the country's decision to boycott the Games, the document detailed the existing steroids operations of the program, along with suggestions for further enhancements.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/sports/olympics/soviet-doping-plan-russia-rio-games.html |title=The Soviet Doping Plan: Document Reveals Illicit Approach to '84 Olympics |last=Ruiz |first=Rebecca R. |date=13 August 2016 |newspaper=The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 |access-date=3 September 2016}}</ref>