Tag Archives: sport

Turkmenistan unveils Olympic torch

FEB. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan’s President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is a keen sportsman.

He loves horse riding and urges Turkmens to keep fit, even declaring April to be the month of “health and happiness”.

And now he has his own sporting mega project to organise — the 2017 Asian Indoor Games which Ashgabat is due to host.

At the latest meeting of the organising committee for the 2017 Games, which state television portrayed as an important step forward in the setup of the event, Mr Berdymukhamedov unveiled the design of the Olympic torch, featuring Turkmenistan’s trademark bright green branding.

Turkmen opposition media, based in Europe and not in Turkmenistan, reported that the Olympic torch for the 2017 Games might be lit at the giant Galkynysh gas field in the south of the country.

It’s still unclear if gundogar.org was making mischief or reporting fact. If it does materialise, it will be another reminder of the importance of gas in the national psyche of Turkmenistan.

And the Games have already attracted controversy. Last year, Amnesty International used satellite imagery to show how several urban clusters on Ashgabat’s fringe were being demolished to make room for the Olympic Village. Turkmen officials didn’t refute the allegations.

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(News report from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)

Russian bank sponsors Georgia’s football team

MARCH 2 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Georgian subsidiary of Russia’s VTB Bank will sponsor Georgia’s football team, media reported. The deal highlights, once again, just how improved relations are between the two countries. This sort of deal would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. Georgia and Russia fought a brief war over the breakaway state of South Ossetia in 2008.

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(News report from Issue No. 270, published on March 4 2016)

Kazakhstan cuts funding to sport

FEB. 25 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – Samruk-Kazyna, Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund, said it will cut funding to the Astana Presidential Sports Club, an umbrella organisation that sponsors everything from cycling to football to boxing. The club was officially set up in 2013 to promote Kazakhstan and Astana under the country’s yellow and blue colours. It received large sums of money. Successes included winning cycling’s Tour de France and FC Astana playing in the Champion’s League, football’s most high profile competition. Kazakhstan has been looking for ways to cut costs as the economic downturn bites.

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(News report from Issue No. 269, published on Feb. 26 2016)

Azerbaijani organisers deny F1 race

JAN. 21 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The organisers of Azerbaijan’s first Formula 1 race, scheduled for June, denied that the current economic downturn has hit their plans to stage the event. They were responding to media reports that they were going to have to downgrade their plans after a 50% fall in the value of their manat currency over the past year.

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(News report from Issue No. 264, published on Jan. 22 2016)

Kazakhstan organises online football manager poll

JAN. 14 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – An online poll by Kazakhstan’s football federation asking fans if they wanted a foreign or Kazakh manager for their national team flopped after it fell far short of the 50,000 votes it needed for the result to be acted upon. By midnight on Jan. 14, the poll had attracted just over 2,500 votes, 5% of total needed.

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(News report from Issue No. 263, published on Jan. 15 2016)

Football-linked trial starts in Azerbaijan

JAN. 5 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) – The trial of five men accused of killing journalist Rasim Aliyev in August has opened. Aliyev was beaten on the streets of a provincial Azerbaijani town and died in hospital. Before he died, he said supporters of international footballer Cavid Huseynov who he had criticised in a match report has attacked him. Mr Huseynov is not among the men standing trial for killing Aliyev.

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(News report from Issue No. 262, published on Jan. 8 2016)

Kazakh Team Astana receives cycling licence

NOV. 9 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – After a four-month-long review linked to a drug doping scandal, Astana Pro cycling team received its World Tour licence. Astana Pro, which is funded by the Kazakh sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna and races in the national colours, has been involved in several doping cases since it was set up in 2007.

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(News report from Issue No. 256, published on Nov. 13 2015)

Footballer lauds Azeri healthcare

NOV. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Tony Adams, the former England and Arsenal footballer, has become the unlikely cheerleader of Azerbaijan’s healthcare system.

Media quoted him as saying that he credits doctors in Azerbaijan, where he is working as director of football at the country’s biggest club Gabala, with saving his life with heart surgery.

He said that he referred himself to the Gabala team doctor after feeling chest pains.

“The brilliant surgeons at the Medical Plaza (hospital) did a fantastic job, as has been reiterated to me by my cardiologist in the UK,” he said.

“I know full well that without the brilliance of Dr Uzeyir Rahimov and his team I would not be alive now: a minor heart operation saved my life.”

Mr Adams, 49, is one of England’s most successful living footballers. He played more than 650 times for Arsenal, between 1983 and 2002, winning 10 trophies. He also played 60 times for England.

Mr Adams started managing Gabala in 2010.

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(News report from Issue No. 255, published on Nov. 6 2015)

Turkmenistan evicts for Games

OCT. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmenistan has forcibly evicted around 50,000 people from their homes in and around Ashgabat ahead of the 2017 Asian Indoors and Martial Arts Games, human rights group Amnesty International said in a report.

Researchers at Amnesty studied satellite images which they said showed evictions and demolitions between March 2014 and April 2015 in two Ashgabat neighbourhoods.

Ashgabat will host the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, a relatively minor Olympic event. It wants to impress visitors with a $2 Olympic Village and an extensive PR campaign on its readiness to open up to the world after decades of isolation.

Denis Krivosheev of Amnesty International said: “Instead of using the Games as an opportunity to clean up Turkmenistan’s human rights record, local authorities there have only succeeded in worsening living conditions for residents.”

Amnesty’s allegation, which the authorities have not refuted, will irritate the Turkmen government and further damage its image, just as it is trying to show the world a softer and more open side.

Analysis focused on Choganly and Shor, two so-called “dacha neighbourhoods” designated for holiday houses. More recently, though, Amnesty International said evictions were taking place in a suburb of Ashagbat too.

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(News report from Issue No. 254, published on Oct. 30 2015)

Georgian rugby earns second win

OCT. 7 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia ended their Rugby World Cup with a 17-16 victory over Namibia, earning their second win in the tournament. This is and the only time that Georgia has won more than one match in a World Cup.

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(News report from Issue No. 251, published on Oct. 9 2015)