Coach Day in Ukraine Date in the current year: July 19, 2024

It is believed that modern professional sports coaching originated in 19th-century Britain. Originally, the term “coacher”, which would be later shortened to “coach”, referred to a private tutor who helped University of Oxford students prepare for their examinations. Over time, it acquired a new meaning — a professional responsible for training a sports team.

As a rule, professional athletes, sports teams and national teams are trained by a group of coaches. In addition to the head coach, coaching staff includes professional fitness trainers and assistant coaches responsible for different aspects of the training process in the given sport (for example, figure skaters can work with different specialists on their skating skills, jumps, and choreography). Doctors, athletic trainers, massage therapists, nutritionists, and other specialists are also considered members of the coaching staff, although they are not coaches in the strict sense of the word.

In order to highlight the role of coaches in preparing athletes for important competitions and developing professional and amateur sports in the country, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky established National Coach Day in 2021. The initiative was supported by the president of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine Serhiy Bubka, the Minister of Youth and Sports Vadym Gutzeit, and member of parliament and Olympic medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling Zhan Beleniuk.

Many Ukrainian coaches have left a mark in the history of Ukrainian and international sports. Here are just a few of them: Valeriy Lobanovskyi, who is the second most decorated association football manager of all time behind Alex Ferguson; Oleg Blokhin, who has had two spells in charge of the Ukraine national football team; Irina Deriugina, the head coach of the Ukrainian national rhythmic gymnastics team; Galina Zmievskaya, who coached the Olympic gold medalist in figure skating Oksana Baiul and worked with figure skaters from other countries, including Scott Davis, Johnny Weir, Silvia Fontana, Takeshi Honda, Elene Gedevanlishvili, and Stéphane Lambiel.

However, Coach Day is not just for coaches who train professional athletes. It is also the professional holiday of fitness and gym trainers, coaches who work in high schools, collages and children’s sports club, and physical therapists. In other words, it is the professional holiday of everyone who helps other people achieve their goals in sports be it professional or amateur.

Prior to the establishment of the official Coach Day, Ukrainian coaches celebrated their professional holiday unofficially on October 30. The celebration was initiated by the Federation of Artistic and Rhythmic Gymnastics of Ukraine in 1999. It is still celebrated unofficially by Russian coaches.