Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has hailed the victories of Russian athletes at the ongoing Beijing Olympic Games and sent congratulatory letters to the champions.
"In the hard, uncompromising wrestle you have defeated your rivals and confidently added a new chapter to the national big-time sport history, " the Kremlin said on Wednesday, citing the president's letter to Mavlet Batirov, Olympic champion in the men's 60kg freestyle wrestling.
Batirov, also a world champion of 55kg at Athens, won his second Olympic gold medal on Tuesday, beating Ukrainian Vasyl Fedoryshyn in the final.
"The best wrestler's qualities have helped you to climb the Olympic summit: courage, excellent techniques and the enormous will to win, and certainly, the talent of the trainers, support of the team-mates and a million of fans that believed in your mastery," said the letter.
In a letter to Yelena Isinbayeva, champion in women's pole vault, Medvedev said the victory marked by a new record "is a bright confirmation of your unequalled mastery, perseverance and enormous purposefulness."
"It has become a real gift to the numerous fans of track-and-field athletics," Itar-Tass news agency quoted the letter as saying.
Isinbayeva, dubbed the female Sergei Bubka, broke her own world record to win the women's pole vault gold on Monday.
The 26-year-old has broken the world record for 24 times. She has vowed that her career goal is to beat Ukrainian Sergei Bubka's mark of 35 world records.
Russia has so far won 14 golds, 14 silvers and 18 bronze medals at the 16-day sport events, ranking No. 4 on the medal table.
(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2008)