Rome will host the 2009 World Aquatics Championships

Moscow lost another election. This time - for the right to host the 13th World Aquatics Championships. In total, four cities took part in the election race: Moscow, Yokohama, Athens and Rome. Rome won the elections by a majority vote of members of the Bureau of the International Swimming Federation (FINA). According to FINA Vice President and head of the All-Russian Swimming Federation Gennady Aleshin, “the victory of the Eternal City was ensured mainly due to state support, or more precisely, guarantees from the Italian government; all this was reflected in the budget of the championship, which was twice as large as the budgets of competitors.” Aleshin does not connect the current defeat of the Russian capital with the results of the elections of the 117th session of the IOC. “The results of the IOC session did not matter, and in general for FINA it does not matter where the previous championship was. We don’t have a rotation of continents,” Aleshin said. As stated by the Mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, a new modern Water Palace will be built especially for the 2009 World Cup in the Tor Vergata area. Let us remind you that the 12th World Aquatics Championships 2007 will be hosted by Melbourne, Australia. Olga ERMOLINA

Our volleyball players will go to Japan

The Russian men's volleyball team won a ticket to the 2006 World Championships in Japan. At the qualifying tournament in the Polish city of Grzeszow, the team of head coach Zoran Gajich won against Bulgaria and Estonia with the same score 3:0, securing at least second place ahead of schedule. The meeting with the Bulgarians turned out to be especially stubborn. In the first set, which lasted 36 minutes, the Russians prevailed with a score of 39:37. In the remaining sets, the advantage of Gayich's team was also minimal - 26:24 and 25:23. The hosts of the tournament, the Poles, also earned a ticket to Japan, having also beaten Estonia (3:1) and Bulgaria (3:1).

At the largest commercial tournament of the strongest women's teams in the world, the Grand Prix in Japan, before today's final round there is dual power - the teams of Italy and Brazil have three victories in four matches played. They will determine the champion of these competitions in a head-to-head meeting. Ilya TRISVIATSKY

The National Cup was played according to the scourge

In Mytishchi, near Moscow, the Russian Beach Volleyball Cup took place, which at the same time had the status of the fifth stage of the national championship. For women, the winners of the honorary trophy were Alexandra Shiryaeva (St. Petersburg) and Natalya Uryadova (Moscow region), who regularly compete this season at the stages of the World Series. In the final match, the girls beat the winners of the previous stage in Belgorod, Nadezhda Zorina (Belgorod) and Olga Bukreeva (Moscow). Vladimir ILYIN

Isinbayeva responded to ill-wishers with a record

At the Super Grand Prix commercial series competition in Madrid, Volgograd pole vaulter Elena Isinbaeva set a new world record, clearing the bar at a height of 4 m 95 cm. This is Isinbaeva’s 15th record. Moreover, the result shown by the Russian in Spain looks unusual compared to the previous ones - before Elena added only one centimeter to the previous records, and last Saturday - two at once. As you know, the International Athletics Federation pays athletes $50 thousand in prize money for setting a record. In Madrid, Isinbayeva tried to prove that the financial issue is not the most significant for her. It is possible that Elena was prompted to do this by an inappropriate video clip that appeared on the Eurosport channel. This “creative” work contains a selection of the best performances of the Russian woman to the music of ABBA Money, money...

“A few days ago, at a competition in Greece, I unsuccessfully climbed the height of 4 m 94 cm three times and therefore decided to skip it in Madrid,” Isinbaeva said. -- The weather conditions in Spain were far from optimal, the wind was gusty, and I had to choose the right moment to jump. I am very pleased that I managed to please the Madrid public. The audience provided me with good support."

The podium at the awards ceremony for the women's 1500 meter race in Spain turned out to be completely Russian. Olga Egorova finished first (4 minutes 4.95 seconds), Olesya Chumakova was a little more than a second behind her, and Elena Soboleva took the bronze. Tatyana Kotova won the long jump - 7 m 20 cm. Ilya TRISVYATSKY

Russian youth team is the best in Europe

In Chekhov, the European Youth Championship, in which basketball players no older than 20 years old participated, ended with the victory of the Russian national team. In the final match, the hosts of the tournament prevailed over their peers from Lithuania - 61:53. The most productive player in the decisive match was Artur Ponkrashov - 13 points. “Bronze” went to the team of Serbia and Montenegro, which defeated Israel 63:45 in the fight for third place. It’s interesting that in the previous seven championships in this age category, our country’s team never made it to the top. So the success of head coach Evgeniy Pashutin’s players can, to some extent, be called historical. Ilya TRISVIATSKY

Armstrong left Ullrich out of work

Over the course of two stages of the prestigious Tour de France stage race last weekend, its six-time winner, American Lance Armstrong, significantly increased his advantage in the general classification.

If on Friday evening the leader of the entire world cycling and the Discovery Channel team was ahead of the Dane Mikael Rasmussen (Dutch Rabobank) by 38 seconds, now Lance’s gap in the overall standings from his closest pursuer has grown to 2 minutes. 46 sec. Rasmussen was pushed out of second place by Ivan Basso from the Danish cycling group CSC. The Italian lasted both stages together with Armstrong, and the joint efforts of these riders helped them leave behind the German Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile), who declared his claims to the overall victory before the Tour. Saturday's stage was won by the Austrian Georg Totching, yesterday's success was celebrated by Armstrong's compatriot and teammate George Hincapie. But these cyclists do not claim high places in the general classification. Ilya TRISVIATSKY