Moscow, Aug 26: Hundreds of Russian sport lovers welcomed the country's Olympic athletes, who returned home from Beijing on Monday.
The plane, which landed in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, ferried the basketball, volleyball, boxing, gymnastics and synchronised swimming teams and the country's Olympic chief Leonid Tyagachev.
Olympic champions in pole vault Yelena Isinbayeva, high jump Andrei Silnov and modern pentathlon Andrei Moiseyev were also on board along with Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko.
"We are happy to come back home as Olympic winners," synchronised swimming champion Anastasia Yermakova told the press.
"We appreciate the cordial support of all our fans. We felt it at Beijing and it helped us a lot."
Fans and family greeted the athletes with flowers praising the Olympic heroes for their glittering performance at the Olympics.
Ealier Monday Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lead the accolades for the returning Olympic athletes who finished third on the medals table.
"I would like to congratulate our Olympic athletes, who made the country's fans happy by winning 72 medals," Putin said at the Russian government meeting. "Our team is young and have bright prospects."
The Prime Minister also said that Russia's Olympic Committee and sports ministry should create favourable conditions for developing more athletes who would be able to achieve success at future Olympic Games.
Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov, meanwhile, stressed that the government was set to develop further sports in the country.
"We have worked out two serious programmes for the development of physical culture and sports in the country," Zhukov said.
"And we believe it will help us a great deal to restore our leading positions in several kinds of sport that we lost in recent times."
In Beijing, Russian athletes won 23 gold, 21 silver and 28 bronze medals.
Russia will host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 00:00