Baku, Azerbaijan, June 5
Trend:
The Baku 2015 European Games, to be held June 12-28, will open a new page in the history of world sports, the Russian news agency RuNews24 quoted the head of Russia's Olympic Committee, Alexander Zhukov, as saying.
The first group of the Russian national team will fly to Azerbaijan on June 9.
Zhukov said that in most sports Russia would be represented by the strongest athletes of the world and Europe, and, of course, first of all, in those disciplines, which will qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
"We hope our athletes will win the maximum number of licenses [for Rio 2016] in Baku," said Zhukov. "I have no doubt that in the future European games will be a major sporting event of our continent."
"It is obvious from the way Baku prepares for the games that the bar of the competitions will be raised to a very serious height," he added.
RuNews24 also quoted the member of the Russian State Duma, the head of the Azerbaijan-Russia parliamentary friendship group, Dmitry Savelyev, as saying that the upcoming Baku 2015 European Games is a landmark event for Azerbaijan.
"It is always very difficult to be the first, but it is also an honor, and Azerbaijan rightly earned that right," he said.
"Of course, the holding of the European games in Baku, will increase awareness about Azerbaijan both on the world sports arena, and in cultural and humanitarian spheres," said Savelyev.
Baku 2015 is the first-ever European Games, an exciting and innovative multi-sport event for the continent that will take place on June 12-28, 2015.
There will be a total of 20 sports at Baku 2015: 16 Olympic sports and four non-Olympic sports. More than 6,000 athletes from across Europe will be representing their nations over 17 days of competition. Baku was awarded the games by the European Olympic Committees (EOC) in December 2012.
"Hopefully we will have some good competition between different kinds of European countries and that is what we are very much looking forward," Mard said.
Edited by CN