Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, has a population of 570,000 in the city center and about 1 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area. Gothenburg was founded as a fortified Dutch, trading colony, by royal charter in 1621 by King Gustavus Adolphus. In addition to the generous privileges given to his Dutch allies from the then-ongoing Thirty Years' War, the king attracted significant numbers of his German and Scottish allies to populate his only town on the western coast. At a key strategic location at the mouth of the Göta älv, where Scandinavia's largest drainage basin enters the sea, the Port of Gothenburg is now the largest port in the Nordic countries. Gothenburg is home to many students, as the city includes the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology. Volvo was founded in Gothenburg in 1927; the original parent Volvo Group and the now separate Volvo Car Corporation are still headquartered on the island of Hisingen in the city.
Other key companies are Astra Zeneca. Gothenburg is served by Göteborg Landvetter Airport 30 km southeast of the city center; the smaller Göteborg City Airport, 15 km from the city center, was closed to regular airline traffic in 2015. The city hosts the Gothia Cup, the world's largest youth football tournament, alongside some of the largest annual events in Scandinavia; the Gothenburg Film Festival, held in January since 1979, is the leading Scandinavian film festival with over 155,000 visitors each year. In summer, a wide variety of music festivals are held in the city, including the popular Way Out West Festival; the city was named Göteborg in the city's charter in 1621 and given the German and English name Gothenburg. The Swedish name was given after the Göta älv, called Göta River in English, other cities ending in -borg. Both the Swedish and German/English names were in use before 1621 and had been used for the previous city founded in 1604 and burned down in 1611. Gothenburg is one of few Swedish cities to still have an official and used exonym.
Another example is the province of Scania in southern Sweden. The city council of 1641 consisted of four Swedish, three Dutch, three German, two Scottish members. In Dutch, Scots and German, all languages with a long history in this trade and maritime-oriented city, the name Gothenburg is or was used for the city. Variations of the official German/English name Gothenburg in the city's 1621 charter existed or exist in many languages; the French form of the city name is Gothembourg, but in French texts, the Swedish name Göteborg is more frequent. "Gothenburg" can be seen in some older English texts. In Spanish and Portuguese the city is called Gotemburgo; these traditional forms are sometimes replaced with the use of the Swedish Göteborg, for example by The Göteborg Opera and the Göteborg Ballet. However, Göteborgs universitet designated as the Göteborg University in English, changed its name to the University of Gothenburg in 2008; the Gothenburg municipality has reverted to the use of the English name in international contexts.
In 2009, the city council launched a new logotype for Gothenburg. Since the name "Göteborg" contains the Swedish letter "ö" the idea was to make the name more international and up to date by "turning" the "ö" sideways; as of 2015, the name is spelled "Go:teborg" on a large number of signs in the city. In the early modern period, the configuration of Sweden's borders made Gothenburg strategically critical as the only Swedish gateway to the North Sea and Atlantic, situated on the west coast in a narrow strip of Swedish territory between Danish Halland in the south and Norwegian Bohuslän in the north. After several failed attempts, Gothenburg was founded in 1621 by King Gustavus Adolphus; the site of the first church built in Gothenburg, subsequently destroyed by Danish invaders, is marked by a stone near the north end of the Älvsborg Bridge in the Färjenäs Park. The church was built in 1603 and destroyed in 1611; the city was influenced by the Dutch and Scots, Dutch planners and engineers were contracted to construct the city as they had the skills needed to drain and build in the marshy areas chosen for the city.
The town was designed like Dutch cities such as Amsterdam and New Amsterdam. The planning of the streets and canals of Gothenburg resembled that of Jakarta, built by the Dutch around the same time; the Dutchmen won political power, it was not until 1652, when the last Dutch politician in the city's council died, that Swedes acquired political power over Gothenburg. During the Dutch period, the town followed Dutch town laws and Dutch was proposed as the official language in the town. Robust city walls were built during the 17th century. In 1807, a decision was made to tear down most of the city's wall; the work started in 1810, was carried out by 150 soldiers from the Bohus regiment. Along with the Dutch, the town was influenced by Scots who settled down in Gothenburg. Many became people of high-profile. William Chalmers, the son of a Scottish immigrant, donated his fortunes to set up what became the Chalmers University of Technology. In 1841, the Scotsman Alexander Keiller founded the Götaverken shipbuilding company, in business until 1989.
His son James Keiller donated Keiller Park to the city in 1906. The Gothenburg coat of arms was based on the lion of the coat of arms of Sweden, symbolically holding a shield w
Germany
Germany the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north and the Czech Republic to the east and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to the west. Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,386 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a decentralized country, its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport. Germany's largest urban area is the Ruhr, with its main centres of Essen; the country's other major cities are Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Bremen and Nuremberg. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity.
A region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815; the German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the revolution of 1918–19, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic; the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, the annexation of Austria, World War II, the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, Austria was re-established as an independent country and two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American and French occupation zones, East Germany, formed from the Soviet occupation zone.
Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990. Today, the sovereign state of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor, it is a great power with a strong economy. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods; as a developed country with a high standard of living, it upholds a social security and universal health care system, environmental protection, a tuition-free university education. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993, it is part of the Schengen Area and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, the OECD. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential and successful artists, musicians, film people, entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors.
Germany has a large number of World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world. The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine; the German term Deutschland diutisciu land is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "popular", derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons originates; the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen between 1994 and 1998 where eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins of 1.82 to 2.25 m length were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first non-modern human fossil was discovered.
The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm; the finds included 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man, the oldest uncontested figurative art discovered, the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels, the oldest uncontested human figurative art discovered. The Nebra sky disk is a bronze artefact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, it is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme. The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well
2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships
The 10th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations were held in the Budapest Arena, Hungary between March 5 and March 7, 2004. A total off 139 countries were represented by 677 athletes at the championships, it was the second visit of the championships to Budapest having visited there 15 years earlier in 1989. The newly built 13,000 capacity arena was built on the site of a former stadium, destroyed by fire in 1999; this was the last World Indoor Championships. The event was discontinued as the tight bends involved in running indoors left athletes drawn to run on the inside lanes with minimal or no chance of winning. 1997 | 1999 | 2001 | 2003 | 2004 2001 | 2003 | 2004 | 2006 | 2008 IAAF Official website
2006 European Athletics Championships
The 19th European Athletics Championships were held in Gothenburg, between 7 August and 13 August 2006. The competition arena was the Ullevi Stadium and the official motto "Catch the Spirit". Gothenburg hosted the 1995 World Championships in Athletics, Stockholm, Sweden's capital, hosted 1958 European Athletics Championships. 1998 | 2002 | 2006 | 2010 | 2012 1998 | 2002 | 2006 | 2010 | 2012 1998 | 2002 | 2006 | 2010 | 2012 1998 | 2002 | 2006 | 2010 | 2012 The official song of the contest is Heroes by Helena Paparizou. The BBC have chosen to use Carola Häggkvist's 2006 Eurovision Song Contest entry Invincible in instrumental form as the title music for their coverage, they have used various pop songs including Lena Philipsson's "Lena Anthem" and Lev livet by Magnus Carlsson in instrumental form. Merlene Ottey, at the age of 46 and representing Slovenia, is fifth in the 100 m semifinals, failing to qualify for the finals. Official website of Gothenburg 2006 EAA Official Website
Moscow
Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits, 17 million within the urban area and 20 million within the metropolitan area. Moscow is one of Russia's federal cities. Moscow is the major political, economic and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city on the European continent. By broader definitions, Moscow is among the world's largest cities, being the 14th largest metro area, the 18th largest agglomeration, the 14th largest urban area, the 11th largest by population within city limits worldwide. According to Forbes 2013, Moscow has been ranked as the ninth most expensive city in the world by Mercer and has one of the world's largest urban economies, being ranked as an alpha global city according to the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, is one of the fastest growing tourist destinations in the world according to the MasterCard Global Destination Cities Index. Moscow is the coldest megacity on Earth.
It is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe. By its territorial expansion on July 1, 2012 southwest into the Moscow Oblast, the area of the capital more than doubled, going from 1,091 to 2,511 square kilometers, resulting in Moscow becoming the largest city on the European continent by area. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, making it Europe's most populated inland city; the city is well known for its architecture its historic buildings such as Saint Basil's Cathedral with its colorful architectural style. With over 40 percent of its territory covered by greenery, it is one of the greenest capitals and major cities in Europe and the world, having the largest forest in an urban area within its borders—more than any other major city—even before its expansion in 2012; the city has served as the capital of a progression of states, from the medieval Grand Duchy of Moscow and the subsequent Tsardom of Russia to the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union and the contemporary Russian Federation.
Moscow is a seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, a medieval city-fortress, today the residence for work of the President of Russia. The Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament sit in the city. Moscow is considered the center of Russian culture, having served as the home of Russian artists and sports figures and because of the presence of museums and political institutions and theatres; the city is served by a transit network, which includes four international airports, nine railway terminals, numerous trams, a monorail system and one of the deepest underground rapid transit systems in the world, the Moscow Metro, the fourth-largest in the world and largest outside Asia in terms of passenger numbers, the busiest in Europe. It is recognized as one of the city's landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. Moscow has acquired a number of epithets, most referring to its size and preeminent status within the nation: The Third Rome, the Whitestone One, the First Throne, the Forty Soroks.
Moscow is one of the twelve Hero Cities. The demonym for a Moscow resident is "москвич" for male or "москвичка" for female, rendered in English as Muscovite; the name "Moscow" is abbreviated "MSK". The name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river. Finno-Ugric Merya and Muroma people, who were among the several Early Eastern Slavic tribes which inhabited the area, called the river Mustajoki, it has been suggested. The most linguistically well grounded and accepted is from the Proto-Balto-Slavic root *mŭzg-/muzg- from the Proto-Indo-European *meu- "wet", so the name Moskva might signify a river at a wetland or a marsh, its cognates include Russian: музга, muzga "pool, puddle", Lithuanian: mazgoti and Latvian: mazgāt "to wash", Sanskrit: májjati "to drown", Latin: mergō "to dip, immerse". In many Slavic countries Moskov is a surname, most common in Bulgaria, Russia and North Macedonia. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa.
The original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. As with other nouns of that declension, it had been undergoing a morphological transformation at the early stage of the development of the language, as a result the first written mentions in the 12th century were Московь, Moskovĭ, Москви, Moskvi, Москвe/Москвѣ, Moskve/Moskvě. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, a result of morphological generalisation with the numerous Slavic ā-stem nouns. However, the form Moskovĭ has left some traces in many other languages, such as English: Moscow, German: Moskau, French: Moscou, Georgian: მოსკოვი, Latvian: Maskava, Ottoman Turkish: Moskov, Tatar: Мәскәү, Mäskäw, Kazakh: Мәскеу, Mäskew, Chuvash: Мускав, etc. In a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed it became a collo
France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon established the First French Empire, his subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
Athletics at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Athletics at the 2008 Summer Olympics were held during the last ten days of the games, from August 15 to August 24, 2008, at the Beijing National Stadium. The Olympic sport of athletics is split into four distinct sets of events: track and field events, road running events, racewalking events. Both men and women had similar schedules of events. Men competed in women in 23, as their schedule lacked the 50 km race walk. In addition, both the men's 110 m hurdles and decathlon are reflected in the women's schedule by the 100 m hurdles and heptathlon, respectively; the Olympic record was broken in 17 returning events. In five events, including the inaugural women's 3000 m steeplechase, the world record was broken; the athletics was, alongside the Olympic cycling events, one of the few large sports programmes in which the host nation fared comparatively poorly in terms of medals won. Despite a haul of 100 medals at the games as a whole, Chinese athletes took home two bronze medals from the athletics events.
The country's foremost athlete Liu Xiang, the 2004 Olympic champion in the 110 metres hurdles, had to withdraw after a false start due to injury. In the years following the events, results were affected by doping findings. Multiple medalists have been sanctioned for doping violations. Russia has had the most medals stripped. Retrieved from Beijing Olympics 2008 Official Website. * Host nation * Athletes who participated in the heats only and received medals. 1500 metres The original gold medalist, Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain, was stripped of his gold medal for having committed anti-doping violations. The rest of the competitors were elevated by one position accordingly. 4 × 100 metres relay Jamaican team won gold medals but was disqualified due to anti-doping rules violation by Nesta Carter. The CAS decided in 2018 that Trinidad and Tobago is the winner, the silver medal was reallocated to Japan, bronze to Brazil. 4 × 400 metres relay Russian team won bronze medals but was disqualified due to anti-doping rules violation by Denis Alexeev.
Following reallocation, Great Britain's Robert Tobin, Andrew Steele, Michael Bingham and Martyn Rooney have been awarded bronze. Pole vault The original bronze medalist, Denys Yurchenko of Ukraine, was stripped of his bronze medal for positive test for the prohibited substance. On 17 April 2017, Derek Miles received the bronze medal. Shot put The original bronze medalist, Andrei Mikhnevich of Belarus, was stripped of his bronze medal after being given a lifetime ban in 2013 for doping offences. Dylan Armstrong of Canada has received the bronze. Hammer throw Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tsikhan were disqualified for doping, but had their medals reinstated in June 2010 after the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that there was an error at the Chinese medical lab. * Athletes who participated in the heats only and received medals. 5000 metres Original silver medalist Elvan Abeylegesse, Turkey and stripped of and ordered to return silver medal following a positive test for a banned substance at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics.
Meseret Defar of Ethiopia was advanced to silver, Sylvia Kibet of Kenya to bronze. 10000 metres Original silver medalist Elvan Abeylegesse, Turkey and stripped of and ordered to return silver medal following a positive test for a banned substance at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics. Shalane Flanagan was awarded Linet Chepkwemoi Masai the bronze. 3000 metres steeplechase Original bronze medalist Yekaterina Volkova, Russia and stripped of and ordered to return bronze medal following retesting of her original in-competition sample returned a positive test for the presence of banned substances. Following medals reallocation Tatyana Petrova-Arkhipova of Russia received the bronze medal. 4 × 100 metres relay Originally won by Team Russia, but gold medals were stripped due to anti-doping rules violation by Yulia Chermoshanskaya. Following medals reallocation Belgium are awarded gold, Nigeria – silver and Brazil – bronze. 4 × 400 metres relay Team Russia won silver medals, while Team Belarus placed fourth, but both were disqualified due to anti-doping rules violations - by Anastasiya Kapachinskaya and Tatyana Firova in the case of Russia and Sviatlana Usovich for Belarus.
Following medals reallocation Jamaica are promoted to Great Britain to bronze. High jump Original bronze medalist Anna Chicherova, was stripped of her bronze medal following a positive retest of her sample from the 2008 Games for the anabolic steroid turinobol. Yelena Slesarenko and Vita Palamar, Ukraine 4th and 5th were disqualified for doping following retests; the 6th place athlete, Chaunte Howard, United States, has received the bronze medal. Long jump Original silver medalist Tatyana Lebedeva, Russia and stripped of and ordered to return silver medal following retesting of her original in-competition sample returned a positive test for the presence of the banned substances. Blessing Okagbare of Nigeria was advanced to Chelsea Hammond of Jamaica to bronze. Triple jump Original bronze medalist Hrysopiyi Devetzi, Greece and stripped of and ordered to return bronze medal following retesting of original in-competition samples returned a positive result for banned substances. Original silver medalist Tatyana Lebedeva, Russia was disqualified due to use of banned substances.
Olga Rypakova of Kazakhstan was advanced to Yargelis Savigne of Cuba to bronze. Shot put Original silver medalist Natallia Mik
Ukraine
