THE DEVELOPMENT OF SKI SPORTS IN RUSSIA
Ski sports are traditional and popular for Russia, because the harsh natural and climatic conditions have long been a reason for Russians to practice skiing-for domestic purposes, they are still used in the Northern regions of the country, as well as as one of the areas of physical training in the military and law enforcement agencies of the country.. In Russia, ski races are very popular among the masses - they are engaged in more than 1 million people, more than 125 thousand people are engaged in skiing, in third place in terms of the number of athletes is biathlon. The least popular Russians ski jumping, which are engaged in a little more than 3 thousand people. Freestyle, which was in 2011 in last place among the ski sports in the number of athletes in 2017 bypassed the Nordic combined and ski jumping, as in 6 years the number of athletes has increased more than 9 times. Positive trends in the development of skiing are a consequence of the development of mass sports in the country and increasing the availability of sports infrastructure for the population. The effectiveness of Russian athletes in international competitions is inferior to similar climatic and natural-geographical conditions countries - Norway, Finland, Austria, Canada, etc., which is the result of a long stagnation in the development of Russian sports, which is now manifested in the imperfection of methods of training athletes and the lack of high-quality sports facilities for training, for example, skiers.