Translated material
Week calendar
This Moscow tournament, part of the Euro Hockey Tour calendar, was previously known as the Izvestia Prize, Baltika Cup and ROSNO Cup. For the first time, it will be held on the ice of the recently commissioned new Ice Sports Palace on Khodynka, where matches of the 2007 World Championship will take place.
Schedule of games for the Channel One Cup: December 14. Finland - Czech Republic, Russia - Sweden. December 16. Sweden - Czech Republic, Finland - Russia. December 17. Finland - Sweden, Russia - Czech Republic. The head coach of our team, Vyacheslav Bykov, invited the following players to the tournament: goalkeepers - Alexander Eremenko (“Ak Bars”), Vasily Koshechkin; defenders - Alexey Emelin, Maxim Kondratyev (all - Lada), Vitaly Atyushov, Evgeny Varlamov (both - Metallurg Mg), Ilya Nikulin, Vitaly Proshkin (both - Ak Bars), Kirill Koltsov ( “Vanguard”), Andrey Kuteikin (“Salavat Yulaev”); forwards - Alexey Morozov, Sergey Zinoviev, Danis Zaripov (all Ak Bars), Igor Volkov, Vladimir Antipov (both Salavat Yulaev), Ivan Nepryaev (Lokomotiv), Nikolai Kulemin (Metallurg) Mg), Alexander Kharitonov (Dynamo), Pyotr Schastlivy (Khimik), Sergei Konkov (Neftekhimik), Alexander Korolyuk (Vityaz).
Our team is leading the Eurotour by a huge margin, gaining 16 points. Sweden and Finland have seven points each, and the Czech team has one less.
VOLLEYBALL. December 12--13. Champions League. Men. 4th round .
After a two-month break due to the World Cup in Japan, Champions League matches are resuming. The two-time winner of the title of the strongest team on the continent, Belgorod Lokomotiv-Belogorye, led by Gennady Shipulin, meets the German Evivo from the city of Düren on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the Belgorod team failed to convince the European Volleyball Confederation not to count them technical defeats in previous matches with the Austrian Hipo Tirol and the French Tour. ECV officials, who found fault with the incorrect execution of the preliminary application for Dmitry Musersky, remained adamant, although the blame partly lies with them. Nevertheless, there is no despondency observed at the headquarters of the “railroad workers”. There are few doubts in the team that the task of reaching the next Round of Twelve will be completed. Four foreign players play for Evivo - two Venezuelans, a Brazilian and a Serb. Before the World Cup, the German club lost to Tour, beat Montenegrin Buducnost and Hipo Tirol. With one victory so far (instead of three!), the Belgorod team shares third to sixth place in Group A with the Tyroleans, Buducnost and the Spanish Portol. Only the Tour is going undefeated.
The capital's Dynamo team will host one of the most titled clubs in the Old World, Italian Sisley (Treviso), on Thursday. The opponents include such famous volleyball players as the Italians Chizolla, Fei, Papi, Tencati, Vermiglio and the Brazilian Gustavo.
BASKETBALL. December 12. ULEB Cup. 7th round. December 13--14. Euroleague ULEB. 8th round. FIBA Euroleague. Women. 7th round .
In the ULEB Euroleague, the capital's army team will host the Italian Napoli on Wednesday, which they defeated away in the first round - 74:64. CSKA is the leader in Group C, ahead of the Spanish Barcelona in terms of the best goal difference, with equal wins (six each). Napoli is in penultimate, seventh place, and its chances of reaching the second stage of the Top 16 look very problematic. Dynamo Moscow in Group A is playing away on Thursday against the German club RheinEnergia (Cologne). So far, the “blue and white” have not won a single victory on the road, losing in all three matches. But in all four home games, success was on the side of Dusan Ivkovic's team.
In the ULEB Cup, Khimki near Moscow will play at home with the Belgian Oostende, and UNICS Kazan will meet with the Serbian Red Star in the capital of Tatarstan. In the Women's Euroleague on December 13, we will have three regular matches with the participation of Russian teams: Spartak (Moscow region) - Wisla (Poland), CSKA (Samara) - Dexia (Belgium), UMMC (Ekaterinburg) - - “Gdynia” (Poland).
CHESS. December 11--12. Superfinal tournament of the Russian personal championship. Women. Gorodets (Nizhny Novgorod region). December 11--15. Superfinal tournament of the Russian personal championship. Men. Moscow.
SKI RACING. December 16--17. World Cup stage. La Clusage (France).
The stage program includes Saturday races of 15 km (women) and 30 km (men) freestyle with a mass start and Sunday 4x5 and 4x10 km relay races. The previous stage in Italy was canceled due to lack of snow. The competitions in France are the last for the elite before the Christmas holidays and the first ever multi-day Tour de Ski, which starts on December 29, where the scoring time is calculated by analogy with road cycling races, that is, on an accumulative basis.
There are five Norwegians ahead in the overall World Cup standings - Eldar Renning (232 points), Thor-Arne Hetland (156), Jens-Arne Svartedal (128), Oystein Pettersen (109) and Odd-Bjorn Hjelmeset (104). The best of the Russians, Alexander Legkov, is in 16th place. For women, the top three look like this: Marit Bjorgen (Norway) - 300 points, Virpi Kuitunen (Finland) - 222, Petra Majdic (Slovenia) - 194. Our Natalya Matveeva, having earned 88 points, closes the top ten. In the Nations Cup standings, Russia is only fifth and behind Norway, Germany, Finland and Sweden.
SPRINGBOARD JUMPING. December 16--17. World Cup stage. Engelberg (Switzerland).
Flying skiers also had to take a break due to weather conditions, missing last week's competition in Harrachov, Czech Republic. Last season in Engelberg, one set of awards was not awarded for the same reason, and on the second day of the competition, the Czech Jakub Janda celebrated his victory.
SKIING combined. December 16--17. World Cup stage. Ramsau am Dachstein (Austria).
MOUNTAIN SKIING. December 15--16. World Cup stage. Men. Val Gardena (Italy).
The competition program includes super-G and downhill.
FIGURE SKATING, December 14--17. Grand Prix Final. Saint Petersburg.
Russians participate in only two types of the program out of four. This is the sports couple Alexey Tikhonov - Maria Petrova and the dance duet Oksana Domnina - Maxim Shabalin.