Translated material
Chronicle
The European Handball Federation suspended the Chekhov Bears team (Moscow region) for two years with a probationary period of four years. This is the verdict of the EHF Arbitration Tribunal in the case of bribery of referees who worked at the second leg of the 2006 Cup Winners' Cup final, when the Bears eliminated a seven-goal deficit in a meeting with the Spanish Valladolid (29:36 away and 32:24 at home) and won the continental trophy. The Moscow region team was punished for failing to protect the German referees from contact with third parties. One of the judges, while going through customs control at Sheremetyevo-2 airport, found 50 thousand dollars in his bag and stated that he knew nothing about this money. A refusal of this money was written, the banknotes remained in Russia, but the servants of the handball Themis did not report this incident to the EHF in a timely manner. The essence of the punishment imposed on the Chekhov Bears is as follows: if such a violation occurs within the next four years, the team will be suspended from participation in European competitions for two years.
The referees were suspended for five years, the result of the second match "Chekhov's Bears" - "Valladolid" and the overall results of the 2006 Cup Winners' Cup remain in force. The management of the Spanish team insisted on taking away the title of winner of the Cup Winners' Cup from the Russian club.
Badger and Kolodinsky beat the world champions
At the stage of the Grand Slam beach volleyball series in Klagenfurt (Austria), the strongest Russian pair Igor Kolodinsky and Dmitry Barsuk showed the best result in the 2009 season, reaching the Final Four.
At the group stage, our beach team won two victories and suffered one defeat. In the opening round of the playoffs, Badger and Kolodinsky were stronger than the Swiss Martin Lasiga and Jefferson Bellaguarda - 21:12, 22:20, and in the 1/8 finals they prevailed over the world champions Germans Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann - 14:21, 21:12, 24:22. At the next stage, the Russians played the longest game of the season, beating Patrick Heuscher - Sascha Haier (Switzerland) - 18:21, 35:33, 15:13. The meeting lasted 1 hour 20 minutes. In the Final Four, Igor and Dmitry first could not cope with the Olympic champions of Beijing, Americans Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers (15:21, 15:21), and then lost to the winners of the continental “gold” Reinder Nummerdor and Richard Schile from Holland (19: 21, 17:21). Thus, Barsuk and Kolodinsky did not defend the title won in Klagenfurt last year.
Our women's tandems performed poorly in Austria. Maria Bratkova - Evgenia Ukolova, Anastasia Vasina - Galina Boyko failed to pass the qualification barrier. With this, the Grand Slam series is completed; further on the 2009 calendar are the usual stages of the World Tour and the September European Championship in Sochi.