45000 Formula 1 tickets will go on sale May 30, 2014 at sochiautodrom.ru!
Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone said he aims to bring the motor-racing series to Russia by 2012 and New York by 2013, in a move to have up to 20 events in the Grand Prix calendar.
Formula One will most likely be held in the Russian capital of Moscow or in Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics, while at least three places have been identified for a circuit outside Manhattan, Ecclestone said.
This info is from Bloomberg.
Formula One is quite popular in Russia (my brother is huge fan, and doen’t miss a single qualification or a race), and Russian fans have had hopes for Moscow to get onto the F1 series calendar for years. The location for the stadium outside of the city has been selected, and, if I’m not mistaken, even the construction has been started. However, no finalized plans and dates were ever stated, and I don’t know where this project is. There have been talks about F1 and Moscow’s government not agreeing on how to split the profits.
This season, for the first time ever, a Russian pilot, Vitaliy Petrov, is participating in Formula One, as one of the Renault drivers. Btw, if you are flying Aeroflot this April, check out his interview in their onboard magazine.
Formula One has already been to Sochi, last year with exibitory race. It was Renault who brought it’s cars to Sochi. Here are some pictures from that event.
(c) shuriksochi
Grigor Matevossyan (Григор Матевосян) from Sochi, member of Russia Junior Thai Boxing team, has won gold medal in the Cruiser Weight category (under 86 kg) at the IFMA Muay Thai World Championship 2009 which took place earlier this month.
Links: International Federation of Muaythai Amateur. The official results card for male juniors. Photo: sochi-news.ru
Last month Sochi hosted finals of the Beach Volleyball European Championship Tour 2009. Here’s slide show from the event.
(c) piratenergy
Nissan Russian Adventure 2010 (formerly known as Nissan Caucasus Classic) is once again coming to Sochi on January 21, 2010.
Nissan Russian Adventure will take place at the ski resort Krasnaya Polyana in the Western Caucasus. Krasnaya Polyana is the host of the alpine and nordic ski events of the 2014 Winter Olympics with Sochi as host city. Sometimes called the “Russian Courchevel”, Krasnaya Polyana is the most sophisticated ski and snowboard resort in Russia, located just 45 minutes from the Black Sea, and well known as President Putin’s favourite holiday resort. It is also famous for its awesome heliskiing in the spectacular Caucasus mountain range.
The contest is organised by renowned Russian extreme skier Nikolay Veselovskiy, who is also chief heliskiing operator in the area and pioneer of heli-skiing in Kamchatka. For the qualifying run the contest will take place at the actual Krasnaya Polyana Mountain very accessible for the public. The final run with 22 riders will be held on another peak with heli access. The exact peak will be determined depending on where the best snow conditions are to be found. The snow quality is quite unique in the area as the great proximity of the sea produces a characteristic snow that sticks to the steepest angles.
— nissanrussianadventure.com
Here are couple of photos by E. Vasenyov from last year’s event:
(c) 360sca
Tennis [beijing2008, wiki]
Event: Women’s Doubles
Athletics [beijing]
Event: Women’s Triple Jump
Cycling Road [beijing, wiki]
Events: Men’s Individual Time Trial, Men’s Road Race
* sochi2014.com reports he’s Sochi native, but everywhere else I look – he’s from St.-Petersburg. Important thing he’s from Russia 🙂
Sailing [beijing]
Event: RS:X Women
Best of luck to you guys!!
Meanwhile, Russia got it’s first medal — silver in shooting by Lioubov Galkina! Yay!!
UCI ProTour be run in Sochi from 2009 onwards. The inaugural race would take place from May 20 to May 24 2009. Here is Sochi-part of the «ProTour heading East» news article by cyclingnews.com:
As mentioned above, a five day event in the Sochi region will be run from 2009 onwards. The resort area is the location for the 2014 winter Olympics and holding a top-level cycling event there is part of the Russian government’s plan to tie other sporting events in with this.
The drive to have a ProTour race goes all the way to the top; Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was involved in that and will send his deputy PM Alexander Zhukov to supervise the race. The latter will act as the chairman of the race organizing committee.
For many years the area has hosted the GP Sochi, a 2.2 race which was held in April of this year. This will remain, with a new event in the same area being added to the highest rung of the calendar. «Sochi has been having its own race for the last 55 years. We are going to leave it there and have this ProTour race separately,» Gusyatnikov said. «The plan this year is to have a trial race, running from the 10th – 14th of September. Then next year the new [ProTour] race will be held.
«It will be the Tour of Sochi. Some people want to called it the Tour of Sochi 2014 to underline the Winter Olympics connection, but personally I am against that because we don’t want to mix up the sports.»
The first edition of the race will be five days long and is pencilled in to take place from May 20th – 24th. It will be developed over time, with additional roads being built in the area for this purpose. It may also become longer in duration, depending on how the first few editions go.
I didn’t know this, but Elena Vesnina, Russian tennis player, member of Russian FedCup team, lives in Sochi!
Russia is currently ranked number one in FedCup rankings. Number one, baby! 🙂
Sochi joins The Freeride World Tour! So, the five events are:
Russian Thai Boxing Federation has applied to host 2008 European Thai Boxing Championship in Sochi, Russia. Sochi has strong Martial Arts traditions, for example we have one of Russia’s best Muai Thai clubs – «Atlan». Several of Atlan students have become Russian and European champions in Thai- and kickboxing. Also, Sochi often (every year?) hosts finals of the Russian «Pankration» (aka “Russian Absolute” – Russian version of UFC) Championship.