Top student badminton players gather in Kazan 15.02.2012

The clash of student badminton titans from Perm, Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk, Novosibirsk, Moscow, Krasnodar, Barnaul and Kazan will be shaking the walls of the Kazan Tennis Academy between February 15 and 19. It is remarkable that among the tournament’s participants are also badminton players that had competed at the 2011 World University Summer Games in Shenzhen. And those, who will climb the podium at the current championship, will be called up to Russia’s student national team to perform at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan.

The solemn opening ceremony saw the attendance of 1st Vice President of FISU and Russian Student Sports Union President Oleg Matytsin, Tatarstan’s Youth, Sports and Tourism Minister Rafis Burganov, Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Republic of Tatarstan and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Badminton Federation of Tatarstan Alexey Demidov, President of Tatarstan’s Badminton Federation Yury Chaplygin, 1st Deputy Director General of the Kazan 2013 Executive Directorate Azat Kadyrov, meet chairman and head coach of the Russian national badminton team Vladimir Brusovankin and other officials.

On behalf of the Government of Tatarstan, Minister Rafis Burganov extended his greetings and wished badminton players «to learn sports secrets from each other and demonstrate their best performance.»

For his part, Oleg Matytsin noted: «Lately Kazan has been turning into a sports development centre and face of university sports not only in Russia, but in the whole world. We are very pleased that the competitions in such a popular sport as badminton are held in one of Europe’s largest sports centres designed especially for badminton and tennis. This is all was made possible thanks to the hard work of the Russian and Tatarstan leaders, as well as the team that is contributing to the preparation and staging of the 27th World University Summer Games in Kazan.»

After the ceremony concluded, Oleg Matytsin spoke exlusively with www.kazan2013.com about the prospects of university badminton development and provided a few comments on how Team Russia is gearing up for Kazan 2013.

— The current year’s entrants have more than bright prospects. Participation in the home Universiade presupposes that on home ground we will showcase that national badminton is developing and we deserve top places in this sport. I would like to express my deep gratitude to rectors of Russian universities who create conditions for students to do sports and to find a perfect balance between studies and participation in high-profile competitions.

— Will we see future Olympic athletes in the national team roster during the Universiade?
— Absolutely. We’ve already assigned this task to national sports federations, especially as the Universiade has always been a good testing ground, a definite peak that after being conquered opened the way to the Olympic Games.

— The London 2012 Olympics start in less than half a year. Each country draws up an Olympic medal forecast prior to the Games. Do student athletes have plans like this set in front of them?

— They have only one mission for the Universiade; it’s the top place in overall medal count. To achieve this, each athlete must perform at the highest possible intensity of effort. We must win every possible medal in each sport. Can we predict how many of them we will win? Of course, we can, if we look back at the previous university championships, but to do this we need lists of candidates to Kazan 2013 from national sports federations, their athlete training programmes. Only then we can predict how many medals we have to win to carry out our main mission, which is to win the Universiade on home ground!

Media Department of Kazan 2013 Executive Directorate