Translated material
Week calendar
Russian Championship. Premier League. Match of the 7th round. April 26. "Wings of the Soviets" - "Amkar". 8th round. April 30. "Anji" - "Wings of the Soviets". May 1st. "Terek" - "Lokomotiv", "Spartak-Nalchik" - "Dynamo". May 2. "Saturn" - "Zenit", "Amkar" - "Spartak" M, CSKA - "Tom", "Sibir" - "Rostov", "Alania" - "Rubin".
This week the participants in the decisive Champions League match will be known, which will determine the strongest team of the continent on May 22 at the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid (Spain). The French Lyon and the German Bayern Munich meet in the first return game of the semi-final on Tuesday. The hosts have the task of winning back from a 0:1 score. On Wednesday, the Spanish “Barcelona” will try to eliminate the 1:3 deficit at home in the confrontation with the Italian “Inter” from Milan.
The second most important continental club tournament, the Europa League, is in its second season, replacing the UEFA Cup in the calendar. Here the competition is at the same stage as the Champions League. On Thursday, Fulham (England) - Hamburg (Germany), Liverpool (England) - Atlético Madrid (Madrid, Spain) meet in Foggy Albion. In the first two matches, only one goal was scored - the players of the Spanish team distinguished themselves.
In Soviet times, football championship games held in Moscow on May 2 had the status of “opening matches of the summer season.” This tradition has long been forgotten, but if you still remember it, the meeting between the capital’s army team and “Tom” marks the beginning of a new period in the national championship.
VOLLEYBALL. April 27--29. Super League. Men. Playoffs. Semi-final. Series up to three wins. 3rd and 4th matches. May 1-2. Champions League. Men. "Final Four". Lodz (Poland). May 2. Super League. Women. Playoffs. Super final. Series up to three wins. 1st match .
The “Final Four” of the men's Champions League was supposed to take place on April 10-11, but it was canceled just a few hours before the start of the first match due to the tragic death of the President of Poland in a plane crash near Smolensk. Various options for holding the competition were considered, including games on a traveling calendar, but the European Volleyball Confederation retained Lodz's right to be the sole host of all matches. On the first day of May at 16.45 local time (18.45 Moscow time), the champion of Poland SKRA (Belchatov) plays the semi-final with the capital Dynamo, at 19.45 the match “Ach Volley” (Bled, Slovenia) - “Trento” (Italy) will begin. The game for third place will take place unusually early on Sunday (11.30), the final is scheduled for 14.45.
Volleyball players from the capital's Dynamo and the Moscow region's Zarechye-Odintsovo team, just like a year ago, will compete in the super final series of the women's super league. The first, second and, if necessary, fifth matches will be held in the capital at the Druzhba universal sports hall in Luzhniki.
BASKETBALL. April 27--28, May 1--2. Super League. Women. Playoffs. Super final. Series up to three wins. 2nd, 3rd and, if necessary, 4th and 5th matches. April 30 -- May 2. FIBA Eurochallenge. Men. "Final Four". Gottingen (Germany).
Surprisingly, Samara's Red Wings were simultaneously fighting to get out of last place in the Russian men's super league and preparing for the Final Four of the EuroChallenge continental tournament. On Friday, the Red Wings play Scavolini (Pesaro, Italy) and Gottingen play Rouen (France) in the semi-finals. This season, all nine participants in the top division of the Russian championship were involved in European competitions - a record that cannot be surpassed and can only be repeated. On the way to the Final Four, the Red Wings, led by the famous former center of the Russian national team Mikhail Mikhailov, played 14 matches.
This season, the Russian Basketball Federation applies different regulations to the main games of the men's and women's championships. If the representatives of the stronger sex hold the super final using the “2-2-1” system, then the girls have a different scheme for the already begun “golden” series - “1-2-2”. In the first game on the floor of the Sports Palace in the town of Vidnoye near Moscow, UMMC from Yekaterinburg turned out to be stronger than Sparta & K (formerly Spartak MO) - 70:62. The next two matches will take place in the Urals, and it is likely that the championship will end there.
HOCKEY. April 29 -- May 2. "Euro Hockey Tour". 4th stage. "Swedish Hockey Games" Stockholm.
Match schedule. April 29. Finland - Russia (removed match in Finland), Czech Republic - Sweden. May 1st. Finland - Czech Republic, Sweden - Russia. May 2. Russia - Czech Republic, Sweden - Finland.
Current position of the participants (nine matches played): Russia - 17 points, Finland - 16, Czech Republic - 13, Sweden - 8.
CHESS. World title match. Viswanathan Anand (India) - Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria). Sofia (Bulgaria).
The prize fund is 2 million euros. The winner receives 1.2 million, the loser - 800 thousand. Playing days: 27, 28 (3rd--4th games), April 30, May 1 (5th--6th). Weekends: April 26, 29, May 2. All games start at 16.00 Moscow time. The grandmaster who scores 6.5 points is declared the winner. The confrontation could last as long as possible until May 13, when in the event of a possible 6:6 draw, a tiebreaker should be held.
TENNIS. April 26 -- May 2. Men's ATP Masters tournament. Rome (Italy). WTA women's tournaments. Stuttgart (Germany), Fes (Morocco).
At the clay Masters in the Eternal City, Swiss Roger Federer was seeded number one. The prize fund is 2.75 million euros. There are 56 participants in the main draw. Pairs of the starting round with the participation of Russians: Igor Andreev - Juan Monaco (Argentina), Mikhail Youzhny - Lleyton Hewitt (Australia).
The girls have the strongest line-up of participants at the tournament in Germany, since there is a Premier competition category and a total bonus amount of $700 thousand, and in North Africa there is International and $220 thousand.
SPORTS GYMNASTICS. April 28 -- May 2. European Team Championship. Women. Birmingham (UK).
The Russian men's team did not participate in the medal competition at the Old World Championships that ended last week because they were unable to get to Birmingham due to problems with air traffic in Europe. For the women's team, even a bus trip to Foggy Albion (with a crossing across the strait) was considered as a backup option, but the airports had already opened. Team composition: Ksenia Semenova (current European all-around champion), Aliya Mustafina, Anna Myzdrikova, Ekaterina Kurbatova, Tatyana Nabieva.
CYCLE HIGHWAY. April 27 -- May 2. Multi-day race "Tour of Switzerland".
A series of one-day races on European roads, the Spring Classics, ended yesterday in Belgium, and now the peloton begins preparations directly for the three-week Giro d'Italia, which starts on May 8. The starting “Tour of Switzerland” is simultaneously included in the “Pro Tour” classification and in the most prestigious world ranking of the International Cycling Union. In 1997, this stage race was won by the Russian Pavel Tonkov; last season, the Czech Roman Kreuziger from the Likuigas team celebrated his triumph.