The Day of Sports has been celebrated today, August 29, onsite the Children Playground on Red Square within the Spasskaya Tower for Kids project. The event was held under the aegis of the 2019 World Winter Universiade and with the support of the Svetlana Khorkina Foundation.
Young guests of the playground were met by the U-Laika, the official mascot of the Universiade, with U standing for Universiade.
Boys and girls had the opportunity to play table mini curling, test their shooting skills in a lasertag, score a ball using a baton for the Russian hockey, take part in various contests as well as make photos in the special Snow Globe photo zone. All the guests of the Children playground were engaged in the so called zaryadka. It is a number of basic physical exercises that people usually do in the morning. The exercises were demonstrated by the famous Russian athletes and Honored Masters of Sport featuring Svetlana Khorkina, two times Olympic Champion in sports gymnastics, Svetlana Ishmuratova, two times Olympic Champion in biathlon, and Ekaterina Galkina, two times winner of the European Curling Championship.
When zaryadkafinished Svetlana Khorkina invited all the children to go in for gymnastics in the CSKA sports club adding that there were excellent coaches.
“Today is very hot in Moscow and the Universiade is not the exclusion. Like at the Olympic Games there is only one gold medal and everyone is really fighting for it. The Universiade Directorate is doing a lot to as actively as possible promote this sports event. They are assisted by the Universiade ambassadors and I’m proud of being one of them. Though being a winter event the Universiade is promising to be hot, excellent and first class”, told the legendary gymnast.
Svetlana Khorkina also thanked the organizers of the Spasskaya Tower Festival for the consequent invitation to take part in the Day of Sports celebration. According to her, it is a first class useful event. “The very best is for children”, stated the Olympic winner.
The final contest of the day was competition among children who needed to score a ball with the baton for the Russian hockey. The 12 years old Nikita Zaicev became one of the winners and was awarded a hockey baton.
“My mother and I came from Murmansk to walk around Moscow. We’ve learnt about the Spasskaya Tower for Kids festival and decided to visit it. It’sverycoolhere. I’mfondofsports. I have been swimming since 6 years of age and before I was doing the martial arts. And now in my free time I will go to the stadium and play Russian hockey with my best friend as he has the same baton as well”, said Nikita.
Svetlana Ishmuratova and Ekaterina Galkina held express master classes in shooting (the lasertag) and curling (table mini curling), respectively.
Svetlana Ismuratova, two times biathlon Olympic winner and current CSKA deputy director in charge of the personnel training, explained why it was important to do daily physical exercises. “To be the winner in any kind of sports it is necessary to be concerned about child’s physical upbringing since the very childhood. It is necessary to make up a set of physical exercises that should be done daily. With time passing they should be made more and more complicated”, told the athlete.
Ekaterina Galkina also shared her sportive experience. “The most important in curling is the ability of playing as a team and calculate every move both yours and of your competitors”, she stated.
Adelina Sotnikova, women figure skating Olympic winner and Krasnoyarsk Universiade ambassador, announced names of three lottery winners which the Spasskaya Tower Festival Directorate and the Krasnoyarsk World Winter Universiade Executive Committee had held online. All the winners will get two tickets to visit figure skating and Russian hockey competitions.
Adelina Sotnikova also invited all the guests of the Children Playground to go to Krasnoyarsk next March and support the Russian students’ team.
For information
The XXIX World Winter Universiade is going to be held in Krasnoyarsk from March 2 to March 12, 2019.
All in all in the course of the 2019 Winter Universiade 76 sets of medals will be awarded in 11 categories, including biathlon, alpine skiing, curling, ski racing, snowboarding, sport orientation on skies, figure skating, freestyle, hockey, hockey with ball and short-track. Following the preliminary forecast 3000 sports delegates from 50 countries will take part in the World Students Games in Krasnoyarsk with 170000 of people attending. The TV audience of the Universiade will be 1.5 billion people. The official moto of the Universiade is “Real winter! Welcome to winter! 100% winter!”
