A tournament between the junior teams of Russia and China will be held at the Gymnastics Centre in Kazan from 22 to 25 November. There will be 14 sets of awards for the whole programme. Khalil Shaikhutdinov, First Deputy Minister of Sports of the Republic of Tatarstan, told a press conference at the Tatar-Inform agency.
"Artistic gymnastics is one of the popular sports in Tatarstan, even in the Russian national team in the leaders there are representatives of the republic. And an athlete from our region Matvey Zanin will perform at these competitions. Russia and China are long-standing strategic partners. I hope this project will take root, and in the future we will be able to invite the main Chinese team to us," the speaker said.
Initially it was planned to organise a tournament between the main teams of the two countries, but China decided not to take any risks before the upcoming Olympics. At the same time, there are plans that in 2024 the Russian junior team will make a return visit to the Celestial Empire, where the Kazan tournament will be repeated, added Marat Bariev, President of the Federation of Artistic Gymnastics.
Due to the fact that our gymnasts are deprived of international starts, an offer was made to China to host these competitions. True, we planned the participation of the first national teams. Next year, if the project starts successfully, the return competition will be held in China. The team will come to us very strong, three of them are participants of the world championship. I think that many of those who will come to Kazan will be participants of the Olympic Games in five years' time," Bariev explained.
He reminded that today the national teams of Russia, China and Japan are the leading teams in artistic gymnastics, so Kazan will be a world-class spectacle. However, the entrance to the competitions will be free.
"The Chinese and Russian national teams are great teams in world artistic gymnastics and it is very interesting to watch the junior competition. There will be 14 sets of awards at this tournament. I think that we will see the level of the world platform among both girls and boys. We will enjoy beautiful gymnastics", - agreed the chief judge of the International competitions in artistic gymnastics Russia - China, associate professor, head of the department "Theory and Methods of Gymnastics" of the Volga Region State University of Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism, Master of Sports of Russia in artistic gymnastics Lyubov Botova.
The format of the competition will be slightly different from the classical one. Usually two athletes represent the country in each discipline. But since there will be only two countries at the tournament in Kazan, it was decided to increase this number to three, so that the fight for medals would go on until the last one, and none of the participants could get an award on the leftover principle.
Recall that the artistic gymnastics competition between the junior teams of Russia and China will be held at the Gymnastics Centre in Kazan from 22 to 25 November, entrance for spectators is free.
Tatar-Inform news agency, Arseniy Karimov
