There are big changes in the Belarusian national cross-country skiing team. Olympic Visa. History of ski racing in Belarus Snowmobiling
If you can’t imagine winter without sports, speed and adrenaline, or, conversely, you have never stood on a board or skis, but decided that now is the time, then this article is most welcome. We figure out what sports you can do in Minsk and its environs.
Go!
Hockey
Hockey is not just the most popular winter sport in Belarus. Hockey is the national symbol of the country, loved by both children and adults. There are a lot of hockey sections and clubs in Minsk, but we will list the most popular ones.
« Minsk Arena "- a multifunctional sports and entertainment complex, which is located at Pobediteley Avenue, 111. The hockey stadium with a capacity of 15 thousand spectators at the time of construction was the third largest hockey arena in Europe. The arena is the most comfortable and modern sports facility in Belarus, which has contributed to the great interest of Minsk residents in the hockey matches held here.
« Chizhovka Arena » is named after one of the oldest residential areas in Minsk. The multifunctional complex was built on the picturesque bank of the Chizhovsky reservoir. It is located at Tashkentskaya street, 19.
« Palace of Sports ”, built in 1966, was the most important sports arena in the past. Today this building is interesting for its architecture. The palace was considered so successful that sports facilities of a similar design can be found in Vilnius, Chelyabinsk, Dnepropetrovsk and Volgograd. Currently, it is mainly used for concerts, as well as for international basketball, handball and volleyball matches. During the World Ice Hockey Championship, the official fan zone of the championship will operate near the Sports Palace.
To play hockey, you need to rent a field and bring equipment with you. Usually the hockey season lasts from August to April. But if you don't want to swing your stick on the ice, you can buy tickets for one of the spectacular matches of the Belarusian national team. We guarantee that even those who are far from sports will enjoy the hockey match.
Skis
Skiing is no less popular, this is easy to confirm by looking at the ski resorts in Belarus. With the onset of the first frosts, they are filled with tourists and locals, and every year the resorts are getting better and better. We suggest paying attention to the following resorts.
« Silichi "- the largest and most popular resort in the country, which is located in the village of Silichi, Minsk region. Prices are reasonable, a large selection of slopes and trails. It's great to come here with the whole family or a large company, because in addition to the ski slopes there is a training complex and a children's track.
« Logoisk ” is also located in the Minsk region and is the second largest ski resort in the country. There are 5 quality trails to choose from. There are more beginners here, because the tracks are easier and the prices are lower. You can also ride the cable car.
« Raubichi ” can be found in the Minsk region, in the Ostroshitsky town. From Minsk to go a little longer, 14 km. Rental is cheaper than in "Silichi" and "Logoysk", a choice of ski and ski-roller tracks. The main advantage is that it is easy to get to Raubichi by public transport from the Slavinsky DC.
Skates
Ice skating is perhaps the most popular winter pastime for Minsk residents. There are dozens of indoor and outdoor skating rinks in the capital, but we will choose the best of them. pay attention to indoor skating rink in the Zamok shopping center on Pobediteley Avenue, 65; a large skating rink in the Ice Palace on Pritytsky street, 27; and skating rink for families and professionals in figure skating sports school at Karolinsky proezd, 5. You do not need to have your own skates, they can be rented for an affordable fee.
Snowmobiling
In Minsk, snowmobiles are offered at the recreation center "Expedition". Picnic - has its own territory with the Pleschenitsky reservoir and the beach. The extensive program of active winter recreation includes snowmobiling, skiing, ice fishing and just walking through the snow-covered forest.
A wide variety of equipment for summer and winter activities is available at the Silichi ski base mentioned above, here you can play karting, badminton, volleyball, paintball, ride snowmobiles, roller skates, ATVs, bicycles. The instructors will help relax both those who like a quiet walk through the snow-covered field, and those who are not averse to participating in a mini-competition of steepness and extremeness.
You can also rent snowmobiles and ATVs at the recently opened Quadrodrome company, located near the village of Privolnoye. A variety of tracks will please even the extreme.
snowboarding
You can also go snowboarding at the ski resorts. But in addition to the resorts mentioned above, we want to note " Sun Valley " And " Vesta ". These ski resorts are not as popular, but this does not mean that they are less pleasant for recreation and entertainment. You can choose from several slopes with different lengths for beginners and professionals, affordable prices and equipment for rent. "Sunny Valley" is located within the city, which means getting there is the most convenient. At the same time, in addition to the slopes, Vesta offers a hockey rink, because you can take sticks with the skates for free.
That's all we wanted to tell you about winter sports in Belarus. Be sure to visit a hockey match, go skiing and spend time with loved ones on the rink. We wish you a great holiday!
IN Belarus before the October period, there were not even amateur skiing clubs. Only lovers of singles went in for skiing, using skis for the purpose of recreation and entertainment. The leading role in the development of skiing in Belarus belonged to the Red Army and Vsevobuch. In 1920-1921, separate amateur circles were created at railway points. In February 1921, they held the first competition at a distance of 5 versts, in which 15 skiers participated.
In 1924, the first competition on the Dolginovsky tract was held in Minsk. Men competed at distances of 5 and 10 km and in the 3x4 km relay, women at 2 km. In 1926 Mogilev hosted the championship of the Republic in cross-country skiing.
The section of winter sports, established in 1926 under the All-Union Sports Committee, begins to play an important organizational role. The period of 1927-1931 is characterized by an increase in the level of sports achievements and an increase in the mass character of skiing in Belarus. In 1933, the team of Belarus for the first time takes part in the championship of the Soviet Union.
In 1936, the first seminar on ski jumping and the first competitions among the participants of the seminar are held. Since 1937, the development of skiing in the Republic has been associated with the activities of the Belarusian State Order-bearing Institute of Physical Culture, which was organized on the basis of the Minsk College of Physical Culture.
BGOIFK becomes a forge of personnel in physical culture. In 1939, slalom competitions were held. A. Fedorov (Vitebsk) became the first champion of the Republic, N. Konstantinova (Minsk) won in women.
At the championship of the Republic in 1941, the IFK team proved its superiority. The champions were: 5 km T. Kandybova, 15 km - T. Infantry, men's 10 km - A. Orting (all BGOIFK), 20 km Runtsov (Minsk), 50 km V. Alekseyuk (Baranovichi). The BGOIFK team participated in the USSR championship in Kavgolovo and took the 4th place among the grassroots teams, and the 2nd year student T. Kandybova took the 6th place in the 5 km race, she was the first of the Belarusian athletes to be awarded the title of master of sports.
Despite the difficulties of the war years, already in the winter of 1944-1945, the sports life of the Republic began to revive. The 1945 season opens in cities and districts with relay races and cross-country skiing, in which more than 125,000 people take part.
The first post-war championship of the Republic in skiing, which took place in February 1945 in the village of Uruchcha, turned into a big holiday, where 120 people from 10 cities participated.
The absolute champion of the BSSR was the representative of the Red Army M. Krasnoselsky, who won at distances of 5, 10 km and in slalom, among women - N. Nikolayonok at distances of 5, 10 km and in slalom - O. Rennel. In the first post-war years, I. Pavlov, M. Myuzyukaev, V. Ryzhenkov received the title of master of sports of the USSR.
The sports club of the BVO successfully performs in the championship of the Armed Forces of the USSR, in 1953 it won the 3rd prize. In 1961, at the USSR ski jumping championship in Leningrad, V. Palchevsky became the champion.
The greatest success was achieved by Belarusian biathletes in 1992 at the 16 Winter Olympic Games in Albertville (France), speaking as part of the CIS team. The team of Belarusian students performed successfully in the Winter Universiade, where they won the relay race by biathletes, won silver and bronze medals in the individual biathlon race.
V. Kamotsky, V. Plaksunov, E. Senkevich, S. Kamotskaya, I. Obukhov were among the 30 best riders in the world at various distances.
The PERFORMANCE of Belarusian skiers at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang cannot be called successful. The best result - 24th place in the classic sprint - was shown by Alexander Voronov. In other individual races, our athletes could not rise above 40th place. At a meeting on the development of winter sports, the President described the situation as follows: "The failure is complete, but we must get out of this hole." The Belarusian Ski Union agreed with criticism and set to work. And now our radically changed team is completing preparations for the new season, which starts on November 24 with the first stage of the World Cup in Finland.
Inna LUKONINA and Anastasia MAINGARD
CHAIRMAN of the Board of the Belarusian Ski Union Andrei Kovalenko on changes in the national team:
Our main task is to update the composition and create a competitive team. What was in Pyeongchang is a guard. We had nine admissions for those Games, but we could not close them - there was no one. At the next Olympic Games, which will be held in Beijing in 2022, I hope our athletes will show better results, we will definitely not take “tourists” there.
Few of the last year's team remained on the track. In the men's team, three skiers from among those who competed in Pyeongchang, Alexander Voronov, Yuri Astapenko and Mikhail Semenov, retained their places. The roster has been rejuvenated: Egor Shpuntov, who finished 15th at the World Junior Championships last year, and Alexander Telyuk, who showed good results throughout the season, are training together with experienced athletes in the team. Another recruit is 22-year-old Oleg Chichikov, who is expected to progress. Three more young skiers are involved in the work: 19-20-year-old Evgeny Lomako, Alexander Volynko, Vladislav Gribov. But the most experienced, long-term leader of the Belarusian national team, Sergei Dolidovich, put an end to his long sports career, says Andrei Kovalenko:
He is not going to resume his sports career, and we have already notified the International Ski Federation that Dolidovich has completed his performances. Now he trains his daughters. In addition, he has interesting projects in other areas - as far as I know, he tried his hand at working with triathletes.
“At the next Olympic Games, which will be held in Beijing in 2022, I hope our athletes will show better results, we will definitely not take “tourists” there.”For women, the team has been reduced to a minimum: only Polina Seronosova and Anna Koroleva are listed in it. The rest of the representatives of our country at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang had a different path. Valentina Kaminskaya, who also played in Sochi, for example, moved to the Ukrainian team:
Yuri ASTAPENKO.
In May, Valentina approached us with this request. This is her decision. We wished the athlete good luck. They didn’t try to keep it, they didn’t make financial demands or insist on quarantine - they gave Kaminskaya a chance to try to realize themselves in another team. We did not see any prospects for her in our team.
They also decided to part with Yulia Tikhonova - back in Pyeongchang, the skier was told that they did not intend to renew the contract. And another Russian Anastasia Kirillova will try to prove her worth this season. We hope that Anastasia Kirillova and Inna Lukonina, who are undergoing pre-season training with personal trainers at Raubichi, will be able to get to the World Cup stages through qualifying competitions.
Changes have also taken place in the coaching staff of the team. Her former head coach Ivan Listopad was replaced by the most experienced Russian specialist Nikolai Lopukhov, who once worked with Larisa Lazutina, Lyubov Yegorova, Nina Gavrylyuk and other famous athletes, and last season was the head coach of the Belarusian men's biathlon team.
Now our national team has returned from the training camp in Tyumen. Before that, we trained in Belarus, went to the snow tunnel in St. Petersburg, in the mountains of Sochi. And on Sunday, the skiers will go to Finland, where they will hold the final training camp and begin their performance at the first stage of the World Cup.
The past season for the Belarusian cross-country skiing team turned out to be at least ambiguous. If at the very least Mikhail Semenov and playing coach Sergei Dolidovich took the rap for the men, the "successes" of the women's part of the national team were remembered mainly by disputes and rare appearances in the international protocols of the names of Ekaterina Rudakova or Elena Sannikova. By the way, both girls never made it to the final standings of the World Cup. And so change seemed inevitable. But hardly any of the fans could have imagined how global they would turn out to be. In the new season, the women's national team of Belarus is included in a line-up updated beyond recognition, in which three of the four athletes at once received a Belarusian passport only last year. They also have a new trainer. This place was taken in previous years by Viktor Kamotsky, who managed to lead the national team.
Many were surprised by your appointment. Say, a man worked with the guys all his life, coached Dolidovich, and here is the women's team ...
There is nothing surprising in the current state of affairs. Sergei Dolidovich, the head of the male part of the team, and I clearly understand that we will ride together in all competitions. Unless we build training a little differently. The guys, for example, decided that they did not need mountain training. But otherwise - no problems, no misunderstandings. The leadership of the federation set a goal for Sergey and me: women and men should put up relay teams at the Olympics. Here's what to think about.
It's real? In men, in past seasons, at least someone was recruited, three people were listed in the cup standings, but women may have questions.
I would not say that it will be so easy for the guys to pick up the Olympic relay. I won't say anything about Dolidovich himself, but the level of other athletes who are potentially able to fulfill the qualifying standards is no better today than in the women's team.
The potential of your new pupils is still a mystery. Why, by the way, did you decide to make such a frank bet on Russia?
This is not only my whim. Initially, it was clear that athletes who wanted to represent our country would have to be strengthened. Such conversations have been going on for a long time.
- Were there many applicants?
A lot, but there were three suitable ones. The task is something serious, at the Games we are expected to get a minimum of getting into the top ten. So we had to do a lot of work to find these athletes, to agree, to settle all the nuances.
Even so, getting into the top 10 at the Olympics against the background of the previous “successes” of our skiers looks like something cosmic ...
Yes, no one canceled the competition. But there is, say, the example of Misha Semenov. At the last Games, he simply had to hit at least ten at 50 kilometers and did not do this only because of his own tactical miscalculation. Remember, you didn't change your skis in time. But even so 45 kilometers among the leaders walked. So why, if Misha can do it, the girls, who today are no weaker than Semyonov, cannot?
You speak so confidently about them. Did Russia so easily give us athletes who could potentially seriously claim leadership at the Olympics?
Not that they are not needed there, but we have good contacts with the Russians. We have been saying for a long time: if one of the girls wants to go, will you interfere? They answered: “No, if these are not athletes of the national team.” And so it happened.
- That is, our “new Belarusians” were not included in the Russian national team?
The most interesting thing is that at one time they were included. Anastasia Meingardt, for example, played for the Russian youth team. Yulia Tikhonova went to international competitions and even got into the top twenty at the World Cup. But she did not rise above the 15th place, and in Russia the results are needed here and now. It is unlikely that they will gradually lead a person from 15th place. And for us, this is already now - an iron position in the relay, and in terms of personal results, the prospects are not bad.
- How did our girls react to the appearance of such an impressive Russian “legion” in the national team?
How can they perceive? Here, look, the protocols of the summer championship of the country - just recently ended. Only Ekaterina Rudakova, who was training at Raubichi at that time, the Pole Yustina Kovalchik, who did not need to be introduced, and another Russian girl who worked with us, fit in at the five-kilometer distance, a minute and a half behind Nastya Meinhardt. One and a half minutes lost Inna Lukonina. Starting from the sixth place, the gap increases sharply to 4 minutes. This, let me remind you, is at five kilometers ... Here are the numbers. All other reasoning is inappropriate lyrics. On our own, today we are not in a position to claim a serious result. And not only us. In gymnastics, two American women were invited ...
In such cases, they usually complain that there is Siberia in Russia, where you can find snow even in July, and therefore it is a priori pointless for us to compete with Russian women ...
Stupidity. And those who say that skiing is not a Belarusian sport are simply distorting the facts. At one time, we Belarusians alone took seventh place in the relay at the World Championships. And it's not about the snow. The question is people.
- Do the youth who are now trying to join the national team have a future?
It is simply pointless and dangerous to connect our youth to those loads with which the national team works. Therefore, the composition now includes three ex-Russians: Anastasia Meingardt, Yulia Tikhonova, Anastasia Kirillova and Inna Lukonina from Mogilev.
- And Rudakova?
Ekaterina Rudakova remained in the reserve team. As the athlete said, she does not pull the load and therefore decided to prepare herself. By the way, it seemed to me that it was quite pulling, but since the athlete does not want to ... Valentina Kaminskaya also trains separately. The explanation is simple: for various reasons, she has not yet met the criteria for getting into the squad. Will do - the doors are open.
Exactly two weeks before the start of the Olympic Games, and the feeling of the main sports festival for four years is getting closer. The line-up for Pyeongchang was announced a few days ago at the headquarters of the National Olympic Committee. Sergey Dolidovich, who is expected to be awarded a bronze medal in South Korea for the Sochi Olympics, got into the cross-country skiing team. As you know, two Russian athletes were disqualified, who then stood on the podium in the marathon, and Dolidovich came to the finish line fifth. The history of ski races in Belarus, the main victories and names in the project of the TV News Agency "Olympic Visa".
The 10th Anniversary Winter Olympic Games were held in the picturesque French Grenoble, a large industrial, scientific and university center of the French Alps. For Belarus, this place became historical in 1968. It was here that a native of our country won the medal of the Winter Olympics for the first time. The daughter of a partisan and boxing champion of the republic, Rita Achkina, is a bronze medalist in the relay.
By that time, cross-country skiing had already been on the program of the Olympic Games for 44 years. Success in Grenoble is the first for us, and when the next medal happens, you will find out towards the end of the story.
Skiing in the Soviet Union was a mass phenomenon. At that time, it seems, absolutely everyone was on skis.
And it was then that the plant in the Ivatsevichi district became one of the largest in the production of ski equipment.
Telekhans come from a combination of the words "body" "khana". According to local legend, it was in these places that the body of the khan was buried during the time of the Tatar yoke. In our time, Telehans are known to all those who have ever held in their hands or moved on skis.
In Ivatsevichi we meet with Boris Mikhnyuk. He headed the production that produced skis in the most successful years.
The impetus for the development of the sport is also given by the rapidly growing infrastructure of Belarus. Raubichi appeared on the sports map of Belarus in the middle of 1970. And they not only host biathlon competitions, but also ski ones.
1994 - the first Winter Olympics in the history of Belarusian sports. Our team includes 21-year-old debutant Sergey Dolidovich. Even then he could not imagine that he would become the champion of Belarus in participation in the Olympic Games.
A tight competitive and training schedule for 44-year-old athlete Sergei Dolidovich is the norm. A few days at home. This is time with the family, and training. However, even at this age, he manages to keep himself in a competitive shape. After all, skis are loads, and big ones.
First, distance. At official competitions, the length of the distance ranges from 800 meters to 50 kilometers.
Secondly, the speed of the skier is growing every year. One can imagine how athletes will fly on the tracks, for example, in 50 years.
Thirdly, skis used to be made of wood. Now the sliding surface is made of high molecular weight amorphous polyethylene, and the sticks are made of carbon fiber. The speed that athletes can develop is more than 70 kilometers per hour.
Modern ski racers are like Formula 1 pilots.
In the first decade of the 21st century, there are three important dates in our country's cross-country skiing. The first and so far the last victory of Sergei Dolidovich at the World Cup stage, 5th place in the women's relay race at the Olympics in Salt Lake City. And, finally, the sensational silver success of Leonid Korneenko at the European Championship. However, in the next decade, something happened to which the entire skiing of Belarus went throughout history.
This is the final of the marathon of the Olympics in Sochi in 2014. Dolidovich fifth. However, a few years later, two Russians are disqualified. The International Olympic Committee gives the medal to the Belarusian - he is expected to receive it in Pyeongchang.
He fell, but got up - at one time the whole sports world knew the shots of such falls and broken sticks of the Belarusian. But now he is going to Pyeongchang as a true sports legend.
And it is the Alpenzia ski center that will host cross-country skiing competitions. We have 7 licenses. 3 for girls, 4 for men. First start - February 10, women's skiathlon. There is not long to wait.