The article deals with the development of the youth athletic and sports movement in the Penza region in the first half of 1941 – before the Great Patriotic War. The activities of local Soviet-party and public organizations for the health improvement and military sport training of the population, especially the young: mass ski trips and crosses, gymnastics competitions, athletic crosses (for the Day of the Bolshevik Press, of Komsomol-trade union, for the prize of the "Young Leninist" newspaper, etc.).