Olga Slutsker is former fencer and now president of World Class Fitness Clubs ranked among the top 25 club chains in the world. She joined Russia Today to speak about about the growing interest to sports and healthy lifestyle in Russia.

Russia Today: You are a president of a chain of very prestigious fitness clubs across Russia. Your clubs have been ranked among the twenty five across the world. In your expert view how strong is the interest towards sports in Russia?

Olga Slutsker: I can tell you that in the last years I feel great interest to sports. And it’s not only in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In last three or four years we’ve opened clubs in eleven cities of our country. And all of this clubs are doing extremely well. For example last year in Moscow we had around 1.2 MLN visits a year in our clubs. It means that 1.2 MLN times people worked out at our clubs. And we’ve opened not only fitness chains. We’ve opened children’s clubs. We’ve also opened a fancy club. We are now in negotiations with Irina Viner, the vice president of Artistic Gymnastics Federation of Russia. We are opening  special club gymnastics clubs, swimming classes – and all of these classes are overbooked. It’s a really fantastic interest. I can say that in a couple of days, on July 8, we will be hosting our own Olympic Games, the World Class Olympics. And we are expecting more than 1,000 participants and not only from Moscow. These are all people of different professions and ways of life – engineers, journalists, business people. But they are really big fans of healthy living and sports. And they spend quite a lot of time training, doing some sports.

RT: So there is quite a big interest towards sports in the country that’s growing. But how do you think the Olympic event in Sochi could boost an interest even  more towards sports in the country?

OS: Your correspondents have said a lot about why it so important and why it is such a unique project. What I want to point out is that this is a country with a population of over 140 MLN, And not al people can afford traveling abroad due to different reasons – visa problems or because many people don’t speak foreign languages. So they can’t go to Europe or South Korea, for example, to watch the Olympics. They don’t have enough money for it. I think that if we host the Olympic Games in Sochi we’ll give a great possibility for millions of people to participate in this  big event. Also, children will be able to visit Sochi. I am sure it will be organised that a lot of children groups, including from orphanages, as well as parents with children will be able to come to Sochi and watch the Olympics. It would be a fantastic promotion. And of course if Sochi wins, we are expecting great support from our country. I am sure that we’ll get a lot financing for our sport schools.  Olympic Games are a big investment project. I am sure that a lot of investors will come to invest money in sports and the fitness industry.