MOSCOW -- Russian President Boris Yeltsin was awarded the Gold Olympic Order Wednesday for having the Unified Team compete at the 1992 Winter and Summer Games, the Russian state news agency Itar-Tass reported.
In accepting the award from International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch, Yeltsin said he hoped political changes in the world would help the Olympic movement.
'The era of communism is over,' he said. 'Maybe now it will be simpler to hold Olympics on a non-ideological basis.'
Yeltsin said he considered the award 'an advance' for him and the Russian government and he looked forward to a good performance by the Russian Olympic team at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.
The Unified Team, made up of athletes from the former Soviet republics, competed under the Olympic flag at the Summer and Winter Games.
It led the medal standings at the Barcelona Games with 112 medals, 45 of which were won by Russians. At the Albertville Olympics, Russians collected 22 of the 23 medals won by the Unified Team.
The 1994 Winter Games will mark the first appearance by a Russian Olympic team since the 1912 Summer Games in Stockholm.
After the ceremony in Moscow, Samaranch met with the Russian National Olympic Committee. Samaranch once served as Spain's ambassador to the Soviet Union.
'I hope that Russia will have a very strong team at the upcoming Olympics,' he said.
