OCT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has asked UNESCO to list polo as its indigenous sport, triggering a row with Iran, media reported. Relations between the two neighbours have worsened over the past couple of years although there had recently been an improvement under new Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani.
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(News report from Issue No. 158, published on Oct. 30 2013)
OCT. 7 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian government said it may withdraw its team from the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia after a Russian soldier who fought in the 2008 against Georgia was named as one of the torch bearers. Georgia had said it wouldn’t send a team to Sochi but the government of PM Bidzina Ivanishvili reversed this.
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(News report from Issue No. 155, published on Oct. 9 2013)
SEPT. 14 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nine national teams from Mongolia, Afghanistan, Turkey, China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan convened on Astana to compete in what was touted as the first Asian kokpar championships.
Kokpar, also known as Buzkashi in Afghanistan where it is popular, is not for the feint hearted. Described as a mixture of rugby and polo, four horsemen on each team have to hustle, bustle and muscle the torso of a headless goat into the opposition’s goal.
The best players have to be tough, determined and extremely skilful horsemen.
Kokpar’s historical heartland has been the steppe and mountains of Central Asia, Afghanistan and Mongolia where nomadic horsemen still roam with their livestock. The game reflects the simplicity and hardiness of the nomad’s lives.
Watching European Champions League football on satellite television may now be the favourite sporting pastime of most urban Kazakhs but skilled horsemen and the nomadic lifestyle are still venerated in Kazakhstan.
The Soviet Union banned kokpar but a confident and proud Kazakhstan looking to promote its national identity has been eager to revive it.
Fittingly, in the tournament in Astana, the Kazakhstan team beat Kyrgyzstan in the final. Third place was Tajikistan. Kazakhstan will have a chance to defend their title in Turkey in two years time.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has applied to host matches at the 2020 European football championships, media reported. Last year European football’s governing body, UEFA, announced that several cities will host matches for Euro 2020, one of the biggest football tournaments in the world. Baku is building a 68,000-seat stadium.
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(News report from Issue No. 152, published on Sept. 18 2013)
SEPT. 10 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In front of thousands of fans at the national stadium in Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s football team lost to Jordan in a penalty shootout in the second match of their World Cup playoff tie. The match had ended 1-1. Uzbekistan had been trying to become the first team from Central Asia to reach the World Cup finals.
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(News report from Issue No. 151, published on Sept. 11 2013)
AUG. 28 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) –Kazakh football team Shakhter Karagandy narrowly missed out on becoming the first side from Kazakhstan to compete in the UEFA Champions League group stages after losing 3-0 in Glasgow, Scotland, to Celtic. Shakhter Karagandy had beaten Celtic 2-0 in the first leg of the tie a week earlier in Astana.
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(News report from Issue No. 150, published on Sept. 2 2013)
AUG. 19 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Showing off its global sporting ambitions, Kazakhstan has registered Almaty with the International Olympic Committee as a potential candidate to host the 2022 Winter Games, AP reported. Almaty hosted the Asian Winter Games in 2011. It previously failed in a bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
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(News report from Issue No. 149, published on Aug. 26 2013)
AUG. 12 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Shakhtar Karagandy may be unknown across the football world but it has broken new ground for Kazakhstan. The team from the industrial city of Karagandy has become the first football club in Kazakhstan to qualify for either the UEFA Champions League or the UEFA Europa League.
Just two games, against Scotland’s Celtic on Aug. 20 and Aug. 28, now stand between the players of Shakhtar Karagandy and the glitz, glamour and riches of Europe’s top tier football.
Even if they lose against Celtic, they are still guaranteed a place in the group stages of Europe’s second tier competition.
For Kazakh football, this is a milestone. Kazakhstan is the only Central Asian country to play in UEFA, the European sector of world football, but it has failed to make any serious impact.
Now the unglamorous team from Karagandy, shakhtar means miner in Russian, has changed that. It beat FC Bate, a relatively experienced team from Belarus, 2-0 over two matches and then defeated Armenia’s FC Skenderbeu 5-3 over another two matches.
Win or lose against Celtic, Shakhtar Karagandy and Kazakhstan are finally set for a European football adventure.
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(News report from Issue No. 147, published on Aug. 12 2013)
JULY 13 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — German football club Borussia Dortmund paid Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk 24m euro for Armenian footballer Henrikh Mkhitaryan, one of the highest fees paid for a footballer from the former Soviet Union. The 24-year-old has played for the Armenian national team 39 times and scored 11 goals.
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(News report from Issue No. 143, published on July 15 2013)
MAY 3 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A Kazakh investment fund has agreed to sponsor the Britain-based Williams Formula 1 racing team, media reported. The deal, worth an undisclosed amount and hatched between Williams and the investment company TAK Group, will give more publicity to the Kazakh capital Astana.
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(News report from Issue No. 134, published on May 6 2013)
