As we know, the road to success is treacherous and challenging. But one has to take it anyway. If only to have something to remember, having ascended a professional or a personal Olympus. And have something to be proud of.
Such was the usual road "to the stars" of the Kharkiv rugby club. I. e. it lay through hardships. Start with it being hard to attribute rugby to popular kinds of sports in Ukraine, despite the fact that rugby matches are just as spectacular and intense as the football ones. It just happened so that almost all Ukrainians have been and are crazy about football, meanwhile rugby undeservedly remained in the shadows for a long time. It was a game for a narrow circle of enthusiasts rather than millions. The Rugby Federation of Ukraine couldn't get the national status for more than 20 years, which played a particularly negative role in that, resulting in absence of necessary funding and support.
It was a turning point for the Ukrainian rugby when the Rugby Federation of Ukraine finally obtained its national status in 2013. In addition, with the inclusion of rugby in the list of Olympic sports, new perspectives and possibilities of professional development opened for the Ukrainian and, particularly, Kharkiv rugby players who have always been at the forefront of the Ukrainian rugby "movement" (Kharkiv is duly considered a key rugby center in Ukraine).
The predecessor of Olymp was a sports club created on the base of the Kharkiv tractor plant in the 1980s. The team immediately established itself as a promising one. As early as 1987, Kharkiv players became the champions among juniors, and starting from 1989, they won the right to participate in the matches of the USSR Supreme League. They won their Ukrainian championship in 1995. Having won the World Cup among junior teams in France in 1997, Kharkiv rugby players assert themselves on the international arena. They secure this result by getting the title of champions of the Ukrainian Championship and cup holders among players under 23 in 1998.
The next seven years are, however, much less successful. Precarious financial situation, absence of a decent training base and, of course, economic instability in the country as a whole affected the team. During this period, the Kharkiv team was as though accumulating energy to make a great leap forward later. The result came soon enough. With the change of the head coach and arrival of a private sponsor in 2005, the club got new opportunities. Having found the missing link in a coaching tandem consisting of Valeriy Kochanov and Sergei Nedbailo, the team got a second wind and once again regained confidence in themselves. Whereas the sponsorship and patronage by one of the most influential Ukrainian businessmen, the owner of DCH Group, a Kharkiv native Aleksandr Yaroslavskiy allows the club to quickly solve current problems, to strengthen and develop the material and technical base as well as to invest in the future, preparing young athletes as a decent replacement for the players. It was with the start of such a successful coaching and sponsorship union that the history of the club's new victories began.
In 2005 the team receives its new name "Olymp" and now in each game proves with Olympic persistence that Kharkiv players are the best!
In the same year the club becomes a champion and holder of the Cup of Ukraine for the first time. And they didn't stop there. Today, "Olymp" is a seven-time winner of the Rugby Cup of Ukraine, multiple times champion in rugby (the latest victory was in 2014), nine-times (!) champion of Ukraine in rugby (2005, 2006, 2007-2008, 2008-2009, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013). The biggest objective for the near future is to set their own record and win the tenth champion title in a row in the Ukrainian rugby championship. By the way, Olymp will meet Lviv Sokil team in a game on their "home" field, a KhTZ stadium, in the next qualifying match on October 28. So the intrigue grows!
It is worth mentioning that the Kochanov-Nedbailo coaching tandem spent a lot of time working with the national team of Ukraine 80% of which consisted of Olymp players. As the result, our national team got early admission to the top division of European rugby for the first time. Speaking about the players. The "olympians" hold the bar high, as they should. A record of Liubyi, one of the team's players who scored 222 points in one season, is yet to be beaten. Besides, Olymp's coaching staff is constantly in the search of new players who could join the ranks of the first team and then represent our national team.
Much attention is paid to development of the Kharkiv rugby school which has already seen first results. For example, the school's trainees had a good start in women's competition in the rugby championship. We can consider a fact that rugby has gained much more popularity among teenagers lately as another undoubted achievement of the Kharkiv rugby club. Olymp's communication strategy plays an important role in that. It includes advertising projects, different promos, and presence in social networks. There is an official page of the club in Vkontakte, one of the most popular social networks, as well as pages of Olymp female team and a fan community. Short-term plans include development of other pages in popular social networks and creation of an official fan club.
Like any other kind of sports, rugby just can't exist without the support of enthusiasts and the fans. Olymp is especially lucky in this respect. There is hardly any other club in Kharkiv, known for its fans, who could boast of such a great support in the stands. For the "olympians" it is the strongest incentive to continue to grow professionally and win again and again.
One the one hand, Olymp's achievement is, in general, an example of how persistence and hard work coupled with the skillful coaching will always lead to victory and bring you to the peak of success. On the other hand, it is a proof of it being impossible to count on a full professional fulfilment without a reliable material foundation and a forward-looking financial strategy provided to the team thanks to Yaroslavskiy's support, which are, by the way, unavailable to most today. Therefore, one thing left to do is to be happy for the players of Kharkiv club whose talent and enthusiasm were timely noticed and appreciated. And to wish all Ukrainian athletes a same reliable financial support. Moreover, in these difficult times when there are so few reasons for joy, not only do Olymp's victories cheer up the fans, but also improve the international image of Ukraine.
