On January 21, 1992 Uzbekistan established the National Olympic Committee and in September 1993 the International Olympic Committee recognized this organization at the 101^st session and thus opened the way for the integration of national sport in all international organizations and structures, participation in major sports forums as a separate national team, said Malik Babaev, president of Uzbekistan NOC. Independence allowed us to institutionalize our place in the sport world, enabling athletes of Uzbekistan in 1994 to act as an independent team at the 17^th Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. And we even made a surprise by winning a gold medal in freestyle, a rare achievement for representatives of southern republic in winter sports. In this connection I’d like to note that Uzbekistan has its athlete, skier Arkady Semenchenko, at the first Youth Olympic Winter Games taking place these days in Innsbruck, Austria, Baabed added.

Lina Cheryazova’s gold opened the ‘Olympic score’ of independent Uzbekistan. Since then, from Atlanta and Sydney, Athens and Beijing Uzbek athletes keep on coming back home with medals, and increasing results from Olympics to Olympics. The last Olympic Games were particularly significant as Uzbek athletes excelled not only in traditionally successful sports, but also reached the podium in trampoline and gymnastics.

This is evidence of the constant development of the national sport, of the national Olympic and non-Olympic sports federations, progress of the sports movement in the country. This is not only about professional sport, but the main thing it is about massive involvement of population, especially young people in sports. Children's Sports Development Fund constantly improves conditions for attraction of children to sports clubs. A three-tier system of national sports games allowed each region to accumulate vast organizational experience, to develop a volunteers’ movement, a vital element for holding major events, to develop an infrastructure and thus to make real strides for lifting sports movement in regions to new heights.

During the years of independence, the country grew stronger not only politically and economically, but also became a sports power, establishing itself among the leading countries of the continent. The accumulated potential is manifest in a number of large-scale sporting events organized in the country and results our athletes show on the international arenas. In this respect, the successes of recent years are quite eloquent: eight medals at the first Youth Olympics in Singapore, 56 awards won at the 16^th Asian Games in Guangzhou, recognition of judoka Rishod Sobirov and canoeist Vadim Menkov by international federations as the world’s best athletes in their respective sports in 2011...

The highest prizes of the International Olympic Committee, Olympic Council of Asia and the Association of National Olympic Committees awarded to the President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov convincingly prove the correctness of the sports orientation of Uzbekistan, our real contribution to the world Olympic movement. Constant attention of the head of state to the development of sports is especially strongly felt by leading Uzbek athletes during preparation for the London Olympics. Indeed, almost immediately after the Games in Beijing in 2008, president signed a decree on preparations to the 30^th Summer Olympic Games in London. The document practically resolved all the issues of preparation for London: provided financial resources to sports federations which now have their own modern training facilities, athletes and coaches receive stipends who are now under constant medical control and provided with allowed pharmacological agents, significantly increased the number of foreign for competitions and training camps, social security issues are being solved...

Our intentions to achieve world-class in sports are reflected in the efforts of the National Olympic Committee and all stakeholders taken to develop training capacity of national coaches through invitation of leading foreign experts in various sports and sending our coaches for internships abroad. All this allows our athletes to conquer new heights and be optimistic in their preparations for the 30^th Olympic Games in London. Victories at the Olympic stadium will be the best anniversary gifts to the NOC of Uzbekistan.