Athletes will compete in nine Olympic sports: ski jumping, Nordic combined, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, alpine skiing, curling, short track speed skating, figure skating and cross-country skiing. More than 220 of the strongest athletes from the two countries will take part in them.
A few days before the official start of the international games, Russian sports judges and volunteers began to arrive in the island capital. There are more than 170 people in the volunteer corps: volunteers from Kazan, Blagoveshchensk, Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg and Moscow joined the Sakhalin and Kuril residents.
– Russia and China are two of the strongest sports powers, and their interaction is to ensure that such powerful competitions for young people take place here on Sakhalin. And I would like Sakhalin volunteers to be able to convey the idea of youth friendship to the people with whom they will work during the games, to fans, athletes, coaches,” commented coach and developer of training programs for volunteers Georgy Bilman.
Photo: Ministry of Sports of the Sakhalin Region
Specialists from the Sports Medicine Center of the FMBA of Russia flew to the island and deployed a mobile medical center with rooms for sports medicine and recovery, as well as massage and manual therapy. Doctors will use innovative methods to help Russian athletes.
The first athletes arrived in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on January 3, they were greeted at the airport with a loaf of bread, music and songs about Sakhalin. The Chinese athletes were also presented with bread and salt: about one and a half hundred athletes arrived on a flight from Beijing.
On the eve of the competition, the Russian national freestyle team conducted training at the main venue for large-scale games – at the sports and tourist complex (STC) “Mountain Air”. According to ski jump construction specialist Rim Dautov, it was possible to quickly build three sports facilities that fully meet all the requirements for holding such events.
“This is our first time on Sakhalin and we are very surprised by the quality of the sports ground and springboards that the organizers were able to achieve. Excellent conditions have been created for training and competitions,” said Nikolai Shimbuev, senior coach of the Russian freestyle skiing team in the acrobatics discipline.
To participate in competitions in this sport, domestic freestylers arrived in Sakhalin in two teams. One of them includes athletes competing at the World Championships and Olympics, the other is a reserve squad that will represent Russia at the Winter Games.
Photo: Marina Turkusheva / RG
The Russian curling team also held classes on the ice at the Vostok training center.
“In 2022, I already represented our country at the Russian-Chinese Games in Changchun. Then we became winners. Therefore, I want to repeat the success. I am sure that there will be serious competition in the competition and we are ready for it,” said curler of the Russian national team Anastasia Babarykina.
On the slopes of the Mountain Air sports complex there will be starts in several disciplines and sports. Snowboarding competitions will take place on the West-Up track, alpine skiing on the Sportivnaya track, and freestyle skiing, including moguls and double moguls, on the Army-Up track. Here, at the “Mountain Air”, a new track has been created – “Slingshot”, where the strongest freestyle acrobats will be determined.
In addition to the STC, the venues for the games will be the Vysota springboard complex, the Triumph ski and biathlon complex, the Vostok training complex and the Crystal sports palace.
Photo: Ministry of Sports of the Sakhalin Region
“The mood is excellent, I think that I am completely ready for the upcoming competitions. A huge plus is that the competition will be held in our native “Mountain Air”, where we know the track well. Participation in the Russian-Chinese Games is a very honor for me. I will give my best to the maximum to get to the top places,” shared Sakhalin alpine skier Victoria Ivanushko.
Let us recall that the first Russian-Chinese youth winter games were held in 2016 in Harbin. In 2018, Ufa took up the baton, and in 2022, Changchun. Moreover, Russia won all three times in the team competition.
“Such competitions are very important for Russian athletes, this gives them the opportunity not to stand still and compete with other countries. And we all know that the best perform at international tournaments,” emphasized judge Nikita Kapitonov.
The official mascots of the games were the brown bear and the panda.
Source: rg.ru
