JAN. 23 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan’s weightlifting federation has said it will tighten checks on its athletes, media reported. The announcement follows the embarrassing disclosure last year that nine weightlifters from Kazakhstan had taken performance enhancing drugs. Kazakhstan has to pay a $500,000 fine for the doping.
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(News report from Issue No. 169, published on Jan. 29 2014)
JAN. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Vugar Gashimov, a 27-year-old Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster, died from a brain tumor in a German hospital.
Azerbaijanis revere their chess champions and news of Mr Gashimov’s death reverberated around Baku and triggered a government reaction. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev sent a letter of condolences to Mr Gashimov’s family and Azad Rahimov, the minister of sport, attended his funeral.
Chess is important to Azerbaijan and in the wider South Caucasus.
In contrast to most other sports, Azerbaijan is something of a world-beater in chess. Garry Kasparov, considered one of the greatest ever chess players was born in Baku.
In central Baku, 22-year-old Irada Nagiyeva, a student, was on her way to lunch. She summed up the impact of Mr Gashimov’s death to Azerbaijan.
“I was quite upset about the death of Vugar Hashimov,” she told a Conway Bulletin correspondent. “He was a champion that represented us worldwide.”
Mr Gashimov was considered an exciting, creative chess player, often willing to make daring moves that others would avoid playing.
His highest international ranking was sixth in the world in November 2009 and he had ranked at tenth in January 2012 before ill health forced him to retire from the sport.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 9 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan plans to test the genes of children to determine which will make world-beating athletes, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported quoting Rustam Muhamedov, director of genetics at Uzbekistan’s Institute of Bio-organic Chemistry. While controversial, genetic testing is not banned.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
JAN. 10 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Vugar Gashimov, a 27-year-old Azerbaijani chess Grandmaster, died while receiving treatment for a brain tumour in Germany. Chess is an important and widely followed sport in Azerbaijan and Mr Gashimov’s death was heavily reported.
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(News report from Issue No. 167, published on Jan. 15 2014)
DEC. 4 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In the end, despite, Iranian objection, Azerbaijan got its way. It can now celebrate a decision by UNESCO, the UN’s cultural body, to decree the game of chovqan as originating in Azerbaijan, media reported.
Chovqan is similar to polo. Other examples of past-times and hobbies that UNESCO has given special national status to include Japanese Washoku cooking and Georgian wine making.
But Azerbaijan’s drive to have UNESCO infer special status on chovqan has upset its neighbour Iran which said the game was pan-regional. Relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have become increasingly strained.
And there are people in Baku who also agree that Azerbaijan’s priorities in pushing for special UNESCO recognition of chovnaq is wrong.
Local media quoted Rahman Badalov, a Baku-based philosopher and art critic, as saying that this was “the latest example of the government misusing budget resources”.
Still, for Azerbaijan’s officials this is an important victory that helps to build its national heritage.
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(News report from Issue No. 164, published on Dec. 11 2013)
DEC. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Often dubbed reclusive and authoritarian, Turkmenistan took the rare step of inviting 80 foreign sports journalists to look around its new sports stadium built to host the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games. Turkmenistan’s main objective, however fanciful, is to host the Olympic Games, one day.
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(News report from Issue No. 163, published on Dec. 4 2013)
NOV. 8 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The International Paralympic Committee lifted a ban on Azerbaijani weightlifter Gunduz Ismayilov who had tested positive for doping in 2004 after he proved that a jilted ex-girlfriend had spiked his drink. Mr Ismayilov had received a life ban for testing positive for doping.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
NOV. 11 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — En route to the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, next year, the Olympic torch touched down from space in Kazakhstan. A Russian space rocket had flown the Olympic torch to the International Space Station from Russia’s launch site in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, as part of the pre-Games relay.
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(News report from Issue No. 160, published on Nov. 13 2013)
NOV. 5 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nine Kazakh weightlifters have tested positive for doping, media quoted the International Weightlifting Federations (IWF) as saying. The findings are an embarrassment to Kazakhstan which wants to promote its prowess in the sport. At the 2012 Olympics, Kazakhstan won four gold medals in weightlifting.
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(News report from Issue No. 159, published on Nov. 6 2013)
OCT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have worsened over the past couple of years. The two neighbours have rowed over alleged spy rings, ties with Israel, assassination attempts and cross border shootouts.
Over the last couple of months, with the arrival of new Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, there has been something of a thaw. He’s been more open to improving strained international relations than his predecessor.
Now, though, a fresh and bitter row has opened up on an unlikely front. Polo, a sport played by kings and the super-rich on horseback, has generated a fierce argument between Iran and Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan has applied to Unesco to have polo listed as an indigenous sport. They have said that polo derived in the country. Iran disagrees.
“We will tell Unesco that the traditional game is a common element that should not be registered exclusively in the name of a single country,” official Iranian media quoted the deputy head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organisation, Mehdi Hojjat, as saying.
Art dating back 500 years from ancient Persia shows men clearly enjoying a game of polo. They ride horses and hit balls with long sticks.
For Azerbaijan to claim it as theirs is a remarkable power play.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
