Russia hopes its hosting of the 2018 World Cup will dispel negative stereotypes about the country by showcasing modern stadiums and transport networks, the head of the Russian organizing committee said.
The country is hosting the World Cup in a hugely ambitious project championed by Russian President Vladimir Putin costing US$20 billion that will include host cities from the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains.
Yet organizing committee chief Alexei Sorokin told the Sport Express newspaper that Russia still had to disprove stereotypes which the country inherited from its Soviet past.
He said that the successful hosting of the 2012 European soccer championship by ex-Soviet Ukraine will likely help Russia.
“Russia still suffers from the negative stereotypes from the past and we need to disprove this,” he said. “We need to disprove it in reality not just in words.
“The Euro 2012 co-hosts Ukraine’s image also suffered from the rumors. The ill-wishers said that Ukraine is a dangerous country with extraordinary high prices and urged people not to visit Ukraine’s part of the event,” Sorokin said. “We must pursue a preemptive tactic and do our best to avoid such claims.”
Sorokin said that he expected no problems with accommodation of the participating teams and their supporters during the World Cup.
“We also have a favorable forecast about the fans’ accommodation as the private business showed serious interest,” he added.
However, Sorokin said that the organizers should never rest on their laurels as there was a lot of hard work remaining.
Not only stadiums, but new airports, hotels and roads need to be built in several provincial cities which until now have seen only a trickle of visitors and are almost unknown to the outside world.
As well as the well-known cities of Moscow and St Petersburg, the World Cup will see games played in far-flung locations like the exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic, Saransk in little-known Mordovia and Yekaterinburg in the Urals.
“We should have the most modern venues by 2018 ... This is a very hard task, but we have no other choice but to fulfill it,” he said.
Sorokin said FIFA representatives have not issued a single complaint on the organizing committee’s work so far.
“The FIFA representatives are visiting us so often that I have a feeling that they live here on a permanent basis,” Sorokin said. “Neither the president nor the secretary-general of this organization have issued a single unfavorable comment upon our activity.”
The organizing committee chief added that though England was furious after losing the race for the right to host the 2018 World Cup, hard feelings had given way to cooperation as top British officials showed their intention to cooperate with the Russian organizers.
“We recently had a very productive meeting with the British sports minister and ambassador in Russia. We have confirmed our joint intention to be on friendly terms and cooperate,” he said.
Russia was awarded the right to host the World Cup in December 2010 in a controversial decision which was bitterly criticized by beaten rivals, including England, as tainted by corruption.
Sorokin also said that though the country’s railways failed to receive the budget funding to build a a high-speed train from Moscow to the most easterly World Cup host city, Yekaterinburg, it would hardly become a serious problem for the organizers.
“The railway is just one of the modes of transportation of the fans to the venues,” Sorokin said. “Yekaterinburg is a big city with a modern airport and we expect no problems with delivering the fans there.”
“Compared to the 2014 World Cup hosts Brazil — where the distance between the host cities reaches 3,000km — Yekaterinburg is placed not so far, just 1,000 miles [1,609km] away from Moscow,” he added.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but