Tag Archives: sport

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR becomes EURO sponsor

JUNE 10 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company, is a major sponsor of the UEFA Euro 2016 football tournament currently taking place in France. Neither SOCAR, nor UEFA disclosed the amount paid for the sponsorship, although local media outlets have said it is around 120m manat ($80m).Azerbaijan’s government had previously sponsored Spain’s Atletico Madrid and England’s Sheffield Wednesday.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Azerbaijan readies for first F1 race

JUNE 16 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan hosts its first Formula 1 Grand Prix in Baku on June 17-19, a race that an estimated 350m people will watch on TV around the world.

President Ilham Aliyev hopes that the race will give Azerbaijan’s profile a major boost, but human rights campaigners are also using it as an opportunity to highlight its poor human rights record.

The newly-built Baku Circuit, a 6km circuit through the city’s historical centre, is fast, allowing cars to hit speeds of up to 340km per hour, making it the fastest street track in the world, according to the organisers.

Spanish driver Fernando Alonso said that it was a unique circuit.

“It’s good both for drivers and in terms of the show for spectators,” he told the formula1.com website.

But in the host city, few Azerbaijanis share his excitement.

With oil prices down, Azerbaijan, which depends on income from oil and gas exports, is predicted to drop into a recession this year.

Official data has not been released but Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has estimated that the authorities have spent $250m on hosting the F1 race — roughly half the annual healthcare budget.

Locals said the Azerbaijani government should be concentrating on improving the country’s economy.

Bahruz, a 21-year old student in Baku, told the Conway Bulletin’s Azerbaijan correspondent that unemployment has been rising fast.

“Formula 1 is a waste of money. It just serves the government to build an image as a sport-loving country,” he said.

Mr Aliyev appears to have decided to promote Azerbaijan through hosting sports events and sponsoring teams. Azerbaijan had sponsored the team shirt of Atletico Madrid football club, sponsors the European football championship in France and last year hosted the first European Games.

Azerbaijan released several journalists and rights campaigners from prison this year but Rebecca Vincent, head of the Sport for Rights Campaign and a human rights activist said Mr Aliyev was trying to whitewash his government.

“Viewers should not be fooled. The smoke and mirrors distract from a more sinister truth,” she said. “A brutal human rights crackdown taking place behind the scenes.”

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

WWF suspends Kazakh athletes

JUNE 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The World Weightlifting Federation said four Kazakh athletes, Svetlana Podobedova, Maya Maneza, Zulfiya Chinshanlo and Ilya Ilyin, took performance-enhancing drugs at the 2012 London Olympic Games. All four athletes will now be suspended from global competition, including the Rio Olympics this summer. Mr Ilyin, twice Olympic gold medallist, said he was shocked by the news and denied having taken drugs. The ban will be a major blow to Kazakhstan’s medal hopes.

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(News report from Issue No. 285, published on June 17 2016)

Kazakh sportsmen fail in drug test

JUNE 6 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Five Kazakh weightlifters have tested positive for taking banned drugs, Kazakhstan’s weightlifting association said. The names of the athletes who failed the tests have not been released although weightlifting websites speculated it could be Olympic champions Ilya Ilyin and Zulfiya Chinshanlo. The drug test failures and any subsequent bans would be a major blow to Kazakhstan’s hopes of winning medals at the Olympics in Brazil.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Georgian football team beats Spain

JUNE 8 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Just days ahead of the 2016 UEFA European Championship, the Georgian football team beat reigning champions Spain 1-0 in a friendly match in Getafe, near Madrid. In its 26-year history, the Georgian football team has never qualified for the top European tournament. The victory against Spain is the country’s highest achievement in football.

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(News report from Issue No. 284, published on June 10 2016)

Kazakhstan cycling team wins the race

MAY 29 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Vincenzo Nibali, captain of the Kazakhstan-sponsored Astana Cycling Team, won the Giro d’Italia, one of the classic cycling races. Mr Nibali won after the race leader Giacomo Nizzolo was disqualified for irregular conduct. Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna sponsors and funds the Astana Team. Wearing the country’s light blue colours, Mr Nibali has also won the Tour de France in 2014 and another Giro in 2013.

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(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

Georgian breakaway region hosts football tournament for unrecognised states

MAY 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia is hosting a football tournament for regions which are not recognised as countries, a move that some critics have said is provocative.

The 10-day tournament will centre on Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia which lies on the Black Sea coast.

Only a handful of countries, including Russia, have recognised Abkhazia as an independent state. Abkhazia and South Ossetia split from Georgia in the early 1990s after the break-up of the Soviet Union, and declared full independence after a Georgia-Russia war in 2008.

And it’s an eclectic bunch of 12 ethnic groups, pseudo-states, wannabe-countries and historical-throwbacks that are competing at the so-called alternative World Cup.

Teams playing in the tournament include Raetia, a former province of the Roman Empire in central Europe, Iraqi Kurdistan and Somaliland.

Abkhazia, which opened with a 9-0 win over the Chagos Islands, is one of the favourites.

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(News report from Issue No. 283, published on June 3 2016)

Turkmenistan unveils Olympic torch

FEB. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is a keen sportsman.

He loves horse riding and urges Turkmens to keep fit, even declaring April to be the month of “health and happiness”.

And now he has his own sporting mega project to organise — the 2017 Asian Indoor Games which Ashgabat is due to host.

At the latest meeting of the organising committee for the 2017 Games, which state television portrayed as an important step forward in the setup of the event, Mr Berdymukhamedov unveiled the design of the Olympic torch, featuring Turkmenistan’s trademark bright green branding.

Turkmen opposition media, based in Europe and not in Turkmenistan, reported that the Olympic torch for the 2017 Games might be lit at the giant Galkynysh gas field in the south of the country.

It’s still unclear if gundogar.org was making mischief or reporting fact. If it does materialise, it will be another reminder of the importance of gas in the national psyche of Turkmenistan.

And the Games have already attracted controversy. Last year, Amnesty International used satellite imagery to show how several urban clusters on Ashgabat’s fringe were being demolished to make room for the Olympic Village. Turkmen officials didn’t refute the allegations.

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(News report from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)

Russian bank sponsors Georgia’s football team

MARCH 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Georgian subsidiary of Russia’s VTB Bank will sponsor Georgia’s football team, media reported. The deal highlights, once again, just how improved relations are between the two countries. This sort of deal would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. Georgia and Russia fought a brief war over the breakaway state of South Ossetia in 2008.

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(News report from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)

Kazakhstan cuts funding to sport

FEB. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Samruk-Kazyna, Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, said it will cut funding to the Astana Presidential Sports Club, an umbrella organisation that sponsors everything from cycling to football to boxing. The club was officially set up in 2013 to promote Kazakhstan and Astana under the country’s yellow and blue colours. It received large sums of money. Successes included winning cycling’s Tour de France and FC Astana playing in the Champion’s League, football’s most high profile competition. Kazakhstan has been looking for ways to cut costs as the economic downturn bites.

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(News report from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)