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| Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia, location of the Universiade. The beautiful Kazan Kremlin is a UNESCO World Heritage Site |
Download a copy of the technical handbook here. This includes all of the technical rules of the competition, who is on the Committee, as well as where you can order your lunchbox if you are an official :0).
Find the main website for the Universiade here, in English, Russian and Tatar. The RGF is also providing an overview of press coverage - click on the link that reads Пресса об Универсиаде.
There is a full list of participants here, although it seems a little bit out of date (for Russia no Mustafina; Stolyarov listed instead of Petrov) and you have to look it up country by country. Start lists are here.
Official live streaming in the English language will be available here. You can see the schedule here, but keep checking because the times do not seem to agree with those on the competition schedule ... You will need to register, but it is free!! The registration seems a little bit clunky, and I have had feedback that users are redirected to all sorts of odd pages, but eventually seem to be remembered by the system ... try and try again!
In addition, there will be live streaming on the Russian site Sportbox - assuming that all territories can access this coverage. And there is a video hub on the Universiade website.
Details of the competition schedules (including warm ups and so on) are to be found here. All times are local to Kazan, and subject to change so check regularly. Details of the competition roster (below) were originally found on the RGF website at the link titled Расписание соревнований and have been amended according to the WAG startlist - thank you Judith Wouters for finding the link!
Afanasyeva, Nabiyeva and Paseka are all starred here, suggesting they will perform two vaults each - if they manage to accomplish this, I cannot remember the last time a Russian team made such a strong statement on this apparatus. I wonder if we will see the unveiling of the Afanar if Ksenia qualifies for the event final?? Otherwise, it all seems as we expected, with Mustafina, Afanasyeva and Nabiyeva going all around, Paseka on vault, and Dementieva on bars, beam and floor ... Fingers crossed.
Sunday July 7th
WAG team, subdivision 1 2.00 pm Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Hong
Kong, China, Slovakia, Chile,
Czech Republic
WAG team, subdivision 2 3.30 pm Mexico, Canada, Democratic People's
Republic of Korea, Croatia, Hungary,
Latvia, Singapore
WAG team, subdivision 3 6.00 pm Germany, Slovenia, Chinese Taipei,
United Kingdom
WAG team, subdivision 4 7.30 pm Japan, South Korea, Ukraine, Russia
WAG team medal ceremony 9.00 pm
Monday July 8th
MAG team, subdivision 1 10.00 am Croatia, Ireland, Mongolia, Belgium,
Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Chile,
Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Denmark,
Poland, Turkey, Slovakia, Latvia
MAG team, subdivision 2 11.40 am Norway, Chinese Taipei, Mexico,
Singapore, Vietnam, New Zealand
MAG team, subdivision 3 3.00 pm Italy, Portugal, Slovenia, Hungary,
Kazakstan, Finland
MAG team, subdivision 4 4.40 pm Switzerland, Brazil, South Korea,
United Kingdom, Germany, France
MAG team, subdivision 5 6.20 pm Russia, Canada, Ukraine, Japan,
China, Romania
MAG team medal ceremony 8.00 pm
Tuesday July 9th
WAG all around 3.00 pm
WAG medal ceremony 4.30 pm
MAG all around 7.00 pm
MAG medal ceremony 8.30 pm
Wednesday July 10th
Apparatus finals :
MAG Floor, Pommel Horse, Rings, WAG Vault, Uneven Bars 3.30 pm
MAG Vault, Parallel Bars, High Bar, WAG Beam, Floor 7.00 pm
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| The stunning Kazan Metro, built specially for the Universiade |
Russia has invested immense sums of money in preparing for these Games, which are central to their overall government strategy of linking sport to tourism, regional infrastructure development and all the cultural and economic legacies associated with staging such mega events. The Universiade is the first of three major sporting events to be staged over the coming years: next year it will be the Winter Olympics in Sochi (and Russia's first modern Formula One Grand Prix), and in 2018 the FIFA World Cup. Government funds, sponsorship moneys and donations from inconceivably wealthy Oligarchs make these sometimes controversial changes possible.
Coming soon will be an article on changes taking place in Moscow and I will be asking the question: will all this big time investment help gymnastics at its grass roots?
But in the meantime, good luck to the Russian team and all those participating at the Universiade! I wish I could be with you ... DAVAI!!