VII All-Russian Summer Rural Sport Games started in Republic of Mari El on July 8, 2008. Many honorable guests presented at the ceremony of games’ opening at “Druzhba” stadium including Grigory Rapota (the Representative of President of Russian Federation in Privolzhskiy federal district), Alexey Gordeev (Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation), Leonid Markelov (President of Mari El Republic).

Greetings from President of the Russiaт Federation were read by Grigory Rapota.

VII All-Russian Summer Rural Sport Games competition program includes 14 sports: arm wrestling, volleyball, free-style wrestling, kettlebell lifting, gorodki (Russian game), judo, field-and-track athletics, ping-pong, swimming, polyathlon, mini- lapta (Russian game), families’ competition, tug-of-war, darts. Also, this year a new competition between tractor operators was included. Over 2800 sportsmen and 74 teams from different regions of Russia, Ukraine and Tadjikistan participated in the event.

Yoshkar-Ola got the right to organize such important sport event at the first time. Ministry of sport of Russia informed that for today Re-public of Mari El is on the 3rd place among all Russian regions concerning grassroots sport and physical training.

Back