Ermakova and Davydova are favorites in synchronized swimming Today, our athletes at the Games in Athens can set a Russian record for the number of gold medals won here on one competition day. We pin our main hopes on the performance of cyclist Olga Slyusareva in her signature points race, Greco-Roman wrestlers, hammer thrower Olga Kuzenkova and, of course, prima synchronized swimming Anastasia Ermakova and Anastasia Davydova.

Forecast for the coming days Following the atmospheric front, cool air entered the center of Russia. The air temperature dropped by almost eight degrees, approaching the usual for these days in August. The cold snap was accompanied by thunderstorm rains, heavy in places. In the next 24 hours, an anticyclone will hit the center of Russia, through whose efforts the rains will stop, and the air temperature will rise again: on Wednesday afternoon to +17...+22оС, on Thursday +19...+24оС.

The European Union, Australia and Chile are waging war against Russia's construction and mining industries In the near future, Russia's construction and mining industries may suffer a crushing blow. The next meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee of the Rotterdam Convention, which regulates the rules of trade in chemicals and pesticides, is scheduled for September.

Ardzinba named Khadzhimba Yesterday in Abkhazia the campaign for the election of the head of this unrecognized republic officially started. Voting is scheduled for October 3, and registration of presidential candidates ended on Sunday.

The President's chief economic expert called for doubling GDP using market methods The head of the Presidential Expert Directorate, Arkady Dvorkovich, joined the long-running discussion about the timing and methods of doubling GDP, as well as the feasibility of accomplishing this task in general. Mr. Dvorkovich has held this position since April.

On City Day, residents of the capital will be treated to Parisian artists and wine The main feature of Moscow's upcoming 857th birthday, which will be celebrated on the first weekend of September, may be free French wine. It will probably be poured out to everyone on Theater Square in the capital on September 4. The director of the Moscow Directorate of Mass Events, Oleg Belikov, announced this yesterday at a press conference.

The anniversary exhibition of the oldest museum on the battlefield opened in Moscow The War of 1812 is a rewarding topic for exhibitions, of which there have been many in recent memory. Shiny uniforms, portraits of dashing and romantic generals, elegant military items, Empire style, Napoleon - people will always go for these.

Rosneft is forced to pay an additional $20 million for its subsidiary State-owned Rosneft does not want to spend money on social payments that its subsidiary Severnaya Neft owed to the budget of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) in 2001-2002. The Moscow Arbitration Court recently ruled in favor of the regional authorities, ordering the company to recover more than $20 million, but the oil company said yesterday that it would appeal this decision.

Italian left-wing anarchist leader fled France Yesterday it turned out that Cesare Battisti, a 49-year-old Italian ex-radical who succeeded in writing detective stories in Paris, fled France in panic, fearing extradition to his homeland. In Italy, he was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for his involvement in four murders - of a policeman, a jailer, a butcher and a jeweler.

VimpelCom began to develop the CIS As Vremya Novostei learned, the Russian company VimpelCom (trademark Bee Line) bought the second largest Kazakh mobile operator Kar-Tel. Thus, Kazakhstan will become the first CIS country after Russia in which Bee Line will operate. True, the company itself has so far refused to comment.

Mikhail Ignatiev sensationally won the track cycling race on points Yesterday, competitions on the Olympic cycling track brought us two awards. Knowing in advance the composition of the semi-final pairs in the women's sprint, we naturally assumed that either Tamila Abasova or Svetlana Grankovskaya was guaranteed to take a place on the podium. After all, they played the semifinals among themselves. But no one expected 19-year-old cyclist Mikhail Ignatiev to win the 160-lap points race.

TABLE OF MEDALS. Position of leaders (187 sets of awards awarded) Country W M B Total USA 23 26 17 66 China 23 15 12 50 Japan 15 8 9 32 Australia 14 9 14 37 France 9 7 9 25 Germany 8 10 13 31 Italy 8 6 7 21 Romania 8 4 4 16 Ukraine 8 2 6 16 Russia 8 17 19 44 United Kingdom 7 8 7 22 South Korea 6 10 5 21 Greece 5 2 2 9 Holland 3 7 8 18 Hungary 3 6 1 10 Note: Excludes beach volleyball, track and field, weightlifting, diving and equestrian competitions that ended late yesterday evening.

Japan sets a record Japanese athletes intend to set a national record for the number of medals won at the Olympics. After ten days of the Games, Japan had 15 gold medals to its credit. Only in 1964, when the Olympics were held in Tokyo, did the Japanese manage to win more top awards. Forty years ago, the hosts of the games won 16 gold medals. According to Japanese officials, athletes from the Land of the Rising Sun can now at least repeat this achievement.

Spectators rebelled against the bias of the judges The performance of the Russian artistic gymnastics team at the Olympic Games in Athens ended in failure. The result of the competition was one “silver” and two “bronze”, which means only 11th place in the team competition. For the first time in the history of national gymnastics, our men were left without any awards.

After the ill-fated final on the crossbar, Alexey Nemov was at the mercy of the television crew in the mixed zone. Having poured out his soul, he, already exhausted, finally got to the writing brethren and said, addressing Russian journalists: “Guys! And women! I want to say a huge thank you to you all, I’m very glad that I was supported in this situation. I am very grateful to all the spectators and fans.