Translated material
Week calendar
The Four Hills Tour is perhaps the most popular sports competition in Europe during the New Year holidays. The winner is determined by the sum of points scored in all four stages. Last season, the Norwegian Anders Jacobsen celebrated his triumph, the Austrian Gregor Schlierenzauer took second place, and the hero of the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, the Swiss Simon Ammann, took the third place. But at the turn of 2005 and 2006, the organizers were forced to announce two winners. Finn Janne Ahonen and Czech Jakub Janda scored the same number of points, down to tenths.
From Oberstdorf, flying skiers will go to the German Garmisch-Partenkirchen (start on January 1), then to the Austrian Innsbruck (January 4) and Bischofshofen (January 6). Let us note that a representative of our country managed to win the Four Hills Tour only once. Nikolai Kamensky achieved this historical success in 1956.
TENNIS. December 29--30. Hopman Cup. Preliminary stage. Perth (Australia).
The world tennis season opens with the 20th anniversary of the Hopman Cup, a traditional competition among mixed national teams. Each match is held in the following format: fights in men's and women's singles plus mixed doubles. This time the trophy is contested by teams from the USA (Serena Williams, Mardy Fish), France (Tatiana Golovin, Gal Monfils), Serbia (Jelena Jankovic, Novak Djokovic), Czech Republic (Lucy Safarova, Tomas Berdych), Australia (Alicia Molik, Peter Luczak) , Argentina (Gisela Dulko, Juan Ignacio Chela), India (Sania Mirza, Rohan Bopanna) and Taiwan (Su Wei Hsiu, Yen Sung Liu).
On the first day of the tournament, teams from Group A meet: USA - India, Czech Republic - Australia. The next day, the participants of Quartet “B” enter the fight: Serbia - Taiwan, France - Argentina. The preliminary stage matches will end on January 3, with the final scheduled for the 4th. Last season, the tournament was won by the Russian team, for which Dmitry Tursunov and Nadezhda Petrova played. But now our tennis players will not be at the Hopman Cup.
SKI RACING. December 28--30. "Tour de Ski". Multi-day race. Stages 1--3. Novo Mesto, Prague (Czech Republic).
The Tour de Ski is being held for the second time. According to the organizers, the purpose of these competitions, which are similar in their regulations to road cycling stage races, is to increase the popularity of cross-country skiing, which has recently been clearly inferior to biathlon. At the first stage in Novo Mesto, women will have to cover a distance of 3 km (classic style, time trial), and the stronger sex will have to cover 4.5 km. On Saturday, the Gundersen freestyle pursuit races will take place - 10 and 15 km, respectively. Sprint races (1 km) will be held in Prague on Sunday.
From the Czech capital, the ski peloton will proceed back to Novo Mesto, then to the Italian Asiago and Val di Fiemme.
MOUNTAIN SKIING. December 28--29. World Cup stage. Linz (Austria), Women. Giant slalom, slalom . December 29. World Cup stage. Bormio (Italy). Men. Downhill .
BIATHLON. December 29. "Christmas Race". Gelsenkirchen (Germany).
The “Christmas Race”, which gathers 60 thousand spectators at the stadium of the Schalke 04 football club, is being held for the sixth time. Last season, Dmitry Yaroshenko and Anna Bogaliy-Titovets competed for Russia, finishing fourth. Now Dmitry will be accompanied by the most successful Russian biathlete based on the results of three stages of the World Cup, Ekaterina Yuryeva. A total of 12 teams will start. The “Christmas race” is held on the principle of a relay race, the shooting line is located directly at the stadium, and the total length of the circle (partially outside the arena) is 1264 m. Here is who the Russians will be rivals: Tora Berger - Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, Solveig Rogstad - Halvard Hanevold (all - Norway), Martina Glagow - Michael Greis, Andrea Henkel - Alexander Wolf, Kati Wilhelm - Michael Rech, Katrin Hitzer - Andreas Birnbacher, Susann Koenig - Florian Graf (all - Germany), Sandrine Bailey - Vincent Defran, Sylvia Becard - Simon Fourcade (all - France), Micaela Ponza - Rene-Laurent Villermoz (Italy), Xianyan Liu - Chenzhu Zhang (China).
CHESS. December 24--30. Superfinal tournament of the Russian Championship. Men. Women. Moscow. 6--11th rounds .
Tournaments use a round-robin system (12 participants each). Time control for men: 1 hour 40 minutes. for the first 40 moves, then 50 min. for the next 20 moves and 10 minutes. until the end of the game with an addition of 30 seconds. for each move, starting from the first. For women - 1 hour 30 minutes. for the first 40 moves, then 30 min. until the end of the game with an additional 30 seconds. for each move, starting from the first. The second day off is scheduled for December 25th. The prize fund for the men's tournament is RUB 5 million. (the champion receives 1.1 million), for women - 2 million (the winner will become richer by 500 thousand).
HOCKEY. December 26--30. "Spengler Cup". Davos (Switzerland).
The oldest club tournament in Europe, held since 1923. Five teams are participating in the current competition - our Salavat Yulaev (Ufa), the Canadian national team made up of hockey players playing in the Old World, Adler (Mannheim, Germany), the host of the ice Davos, the Czech Pardubice. At the end of the one-round tournament (December 30), two finalists are determined. The decisive match is scheduled for the last day of the year. Last season the trophy was won by Davos, two years ago by Metallurg Magnitogorsk.
VOLLEYBALL. December 26--27. "Final Four" of the Russian Cup. Men. December 28--29. Women. Odintsovo.
December 27--29. International tournament "Flanders Gala". Belgium.
The Russian Cup in the Final Four format is being held for men for the fifth season in a row, and for volleyball players for the third season. The winner of the trophy receives a guaranteed right to represent Russia in the 2008/09 European Champions League. In the semi-finals there are Dynamo (Moscow) - Iskra (Odintsovo), Yaroslavich - Dynamo-TTG (Kazan). For women, the pairings are as follows: “Dynamo” (Moscow) - “Nugget” (Khabarovsk), “Zarechye-Odintsovo” - “Balakovo NPP”.
At the Christmas tournament in Belgium, Russia will represent Belgorod Lokomotiv-Belogorye. On December 27, matches will be held in groups, with teams taking to the court twice. “Loko-Belogorye” ended up in the top three with the Belgian “Knak” and the leader of the Italian championship “Cuneo”. The other three include the winner of the 2007 Top Teams Cup “Ach Volley” (Bled, Slovenia), the finalist of the last Champions League “Tour” (France) and the Dutch national team.