1.
Uzbekistan
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Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world. Located in Central Asia, it is a unitary, constitutional, presidential republic, comprising twelve provinces, one autonomous republic and a capital city. Uzbekistan is bordered by five landlocked countries, Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Once part of the Turkic Khaganate and later Timurid Empires, the region that includes the Republic of Uzbekistan was conquered in the early 16th century by Eastern Turkic-speaking nomads. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, it declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on 31 August 1991, Uzbekistan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. The countrys official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in the Latin alphabet and spoken natively by approximately 85% of the population, however, Uzbeks constitute 81% of the population, followed by Russians, Tajiks, Kazakhs, and others. A majority of Uzbeks are non-denominational Muslims, Uzbekistan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, UN, and the SCO. While officially a republic, non-governmental human rights organizations define Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state with limited civil rights. Uzbekistans economy relies mainly on commodity production, including cotton, gold, uranium, despite the declared objective of transition to a market economy, its government continues to maintain economic controls which imports in favour of domestic import substitution. Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometres and it is the 56th largest country in the world by area and the 42nd by population. Among the CIS countries, it is the 4th largest by area, Uzbekistan lies between latitudes 37° and 46° N, and longitudes 56° and 74° E. It stretches 1,425 kilometres from west to east and 930 kilometres from north to south, Uzbekistan also shares a short border with Afghanistan to the south. Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country and it is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world, the other being Liechtenstein. In addition, due to its location within a series of endorheic basins, less than 10% of its territory is intensively cultivated irrigated land in river valleys and oases. The rest is vast desert and mountains, the climate in the Republic of Uzbekistan is continental, with little precipitation expected annually. The average summer high temperature tends to be 40 °C, while the winter low temperature is around −23 °C. Uzbekistan has a rich and diverse natural environment, the Aral Sea used to be the fourth-largest inland sea on Earth, acting as an influencing factor in the air moisture and arid land use. Since the 1960s, the decade when the misuse of the Aral Sea water began, it has shrunk to less than 50% of its former area, reliable, or even approximate data, have not been collected, stored or provided by any organization or official agency
2.
Olympic Games
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The Olympic Games are considered the worlds foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating. The Olympic Games are held four years, with the Summer and Winter Games alternating by occurring every four years. Their creation was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games, which were held in Olympia, Greece, Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894, leading to the first modern Games in Athens in 1896. The IOC is the body of the Olympic Movement, with the Olympic Charter defining its structure. The evolution of the Olympic Movement during the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in changes to the Olympic Games. The IOC has had to adapt to a variety of economic, political, as a result, the Olympics has shifted away from pure amateurism, as envisioned by Coubertin, to allowing participation of professional athletes. The growing importance of mass media created the issue of corporate sponsorship, World wars led to the cancellation of the 1916,1940, and 1944 Games. Large boycotts during the Cold War limited participation in the 1980 and 1984 Games, the Olympic Movement consists of international sports federations, National Olympic Committees, and organising committees for each specific Olympic Games. As the decision-making body, the IOC is responsible for choosing the host city for each Games, the IOC also determines the Olympic programme, consisting of the sports to be contested at the Games. There are several Olympic rituals and symbols, such as the Olympic flag and torch, over 13,000 athletes compete at the Summer and Winter Olympic Games in 33 different sports and nearly 400 events. The first, second, and third-place finishers in each event receive Olympic medals, gold, silver, the Games have grown so much that nearly every nation is now represented. This growth has created numerous challenges and controversies, including boycotts, doping, bribery, every two years the Olympics and its media exposure provide unknown athletes with the chance to attain national and sometimes international fame. The Games also constitute an opportunity for the host city and country to themselves to the world. The Ancient Olympic Games were religious and athletic festivals held every four years at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, competition was among representatives of several city-states and kingdoms of Ancient Greece. These Games featured mainly athletic but also combat such as wrestling. It has been written that during the Games, all conflicts among the participating city-states were postponed until the Games were finished. This cessation of hostilities was known as the Olympic peace or truce and this idea is a modern myth because the Greeks never suspended their wars. The truce did allow those religious pilgrims who were travelling to Olympia to pass through warring territories unmolested because they were protected by Zeus
3.
2016 Summer Olympics
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More than 11,000 athletes from 205 National Olympic Committees, including first time entrants Kosovo, South Sudan, and the Refugee Olympic Team, took part. With 306 sets of medals, the games featured 28 Olympic sports, including rugby sevens and golf and these sporting events took place at 33 venues in the host city, and at five in São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Brasília, and Manaus. These were the first Summer Olympic Games under the International Olympic Committee presidency of Thomas Bach, the host city Rio de Janeiro was announced at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 2 October 2009. Rio became the first South American city to host the Summer Olympics, the United States topped the medal table for the fifth time in the past six Summer Olympics, winning the most golds and most medals overall, as well as its 1, 000th Olympic gold medal overall. Great Britain finished second and became the first country in the history of the modern Olympics to increase its tally of medals in the subsequent games after being the host nation. Host country Brazil won seven medals, its most at any single Summer Olympics. Bahrain, Fiji, Jordan, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Tajikistan, Ivory Coast and Vietnam each won their first gold medals, the bidding process for the 2016 Olympic Games was officially launched on 16 May 2007. The first step for each city was to submit an application to the International Olympic Committee by 13 September 2007. Completed official bid files, containing answers to a 25-question IOC form, were to be submitted by each 14 January 2008. Four candidate cities were chosen for the shortlist on 4 June 2008, Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, prague and Baku also failed to make the cut. Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco headed the 10-member Evaluation Commission, having chaired the evaluation commission for the 2012 Summer Olympics bids. The commission made on-site inspections in the quarter of 2009. They issued a comprehensive technical appraisal for IOC members on 2 September, many restrictions are in place designed to prevent bidding cities from communicating with or influencing directly the 115 voting members. Cities may not invite any IOC member to visit nor may they send anything that could be construed as a gift, the final voting was held on 2 October 2009, in Copenhagen with Madrid and Rio de Janeiro perceived as favourites to land the games. Chicago and Tokyo were eliminated after the first and second rounds of voting, respectively, the lead held and Rio de Janeiro was announced as host of 2016 Summer Olympics. This comes just five months after CCO Flávio Pestana quit for personal reasons, Pestana withdrew later during the 2012 Summer Paralympics. Renato Ciuchin was then appointed as COO, events took place at eighteen existing venues, nine new venues constructed specifically for the Games, and seven temporary venues. Each event was held in one of four geographically segregated Olympic clusters, Barra, Copacabana, Deodoro, the same was done for the 2007 Pan American Games
4.
Universiade
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The Universiade is an international multi-sport event, organized for university athletes by the International University Sports Federation. The name is a combination of the words University and olympiad, the Universiade is often referred to in English as the World University Games or World Student Games, however, this latter term can also refer to competitions for sub-University grades students. The Universiade is the largest multi-sport event in the world apart from the Olympic Games, the most recent games were in 2017, the Winter Universiade was in Almaty, Kazakhstan, while the 2015 Summer Universiade was in Gwangju, Korea. The idea of an international sports competition between student-athletes pre-dates the 1949 formation of the International University Sports Federation, which now hosts the Universiade. This did not come to pass, but an event was created in Germany in 1909 in the form of the Academic Olympia. Five editions were held from 1909 to 1913, all of which were hosted in Germany following the cancellation of an Italy-based event, at the start of the 20th century, Jean Petitjean of France began attempting to organise a University Olympic Games. After discussion with Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, Petitjean, and later the Confederation Internationale des Etudiants, was the first to build a series of international events, beginning with the 1923 International Universities Championships. This was followed by the renamed 1924 Summer Student World Championships a year later, another name change resulted in the 1930 International University Games. The CIEs International University Games was held four times in the 1930s before having its final edition in 1947. A separate group organised an alternative university games in 1939 in Vienna, the onset of World War II ceased all major international student sport activities and the aftermath also led to division among the movement, as the CIE was disbanded and rival organisations emerged. The Union Internationale des Étudiants incorporated a university sports games into the World Festival of Youth and Students from 1947–1962, including one separate and this event principally catered for Eastern European countries. The Sports Week was held biennially until 1955, like the CIEs games before it, the FISU events were initially Western-led sports competitions. Division between the largely Western European FISU and Eastern European UIE eventually began to dissipate among broadened participation at the 1957 World University Games. This event was not directly organised by either group, instead being organised by Jean Petitjean in France, the FISU-organised Universiade became the direct successor to this competition, maintaining the biennial format into the inaugural 1959 Universiade. It was not until the 1957 World University Games that the Soviet Union began to compete in FISU events. That same year, what had previously been a European competition became a global one, with the inclusion of Brazil, Japan. The increased participation ultimately led to the establishment of the Universiade as the global student sport championship. Official website of the International University Sports Federation Official website of the German University Sports Federation Official report of the Winter Universiade Innsbruck / Seefeld 2005
5.
2013 Summer Universiade
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The 2013 Summer Universiade, officially known as the XXVII Summer Universiade, was held in the city of Kazan, the most northerly city ever to host a Summer Universiade. Over 10,400 university athletes from 162 countries participated in 13 mandatory and 14 optional sports, for the first time in history a Cultural Universiade was also included, with many festivals and shows held simultaneously with the sporting events. The Universiade was organized by the International University Sports Federation and by the authorities of the Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan had bid twice for the Universiade, the first attempt was for the 2011 Summer Universiade, but Kazan lost to Shenzhen by just two votes. The city applied again for the 2013 Summer Universiade, and won the right to host the Universiade, zones of activity of the Universiade were connected by renewed highways with two-level flyovers, including the completed Big Kazan Ring with a new LRT. In addition, a Kremlin bridge over the Kazanka River was rebuilt, the key transportation connector to the sporting and other venues from the Universiade Village was the Kazan Metro that had been built in 2005 and was expanded before the Universiade. A large part of works was carried out by JSC Institute Tatdorproject, Roszheldorproject, Energoprojekt. A total of 27 new stadia were built as venues for the event, the Games used 64 venues in all,36 of which were constructed specifically for the 2013 Summer Universiade. The 64 venues were concentrated in 4 zones across the city of Kazan, in addition, many sports venues for training functions were located elsewhere in Zarechye, and some of them in downtown Kazan. Nearly 400 sporting and cultural events have been staged on the campus since it opened its doors in 2010, shortly after the first move-in phase, an open-air step aerobics marathon was held that brought together up to 1,000 Universiade Village residents. The campus had hosted football, volleyball, and chess championships that can rightfully be called ‘international’ as a number of international students competed in them. The length of the relay was about 104,000 kilometers, after touring through 51 cities on five continents, the torch arrived in Vladivostok on 24 January, and on 25 January, the Russian leg of the Universiade torch relay began. The Russian section of the Universiade Torch Relay was held between January and July 2013, the Universiade Torch Relay celebrations took place in 30 cities across Russia, as well as 44 cities and towns of municipal districts of Tatarstan. The torch arrived at the Kazan Arena on the night of 6 July for the lighting of the cauldron at the Opening Ceremony, a total of 351 sets of medals were distributed during the two weeks of the competition. The medal design featured a globe emblazoned with the emblem and logo of the Universiade, the 2013 Summer Universiade opening and closing ceremonies were held on 6 and 17 July 2013, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Premier Dmitry Medvedev in attendance accordingly. The ceremonies took place in the new Kazan Arena stadium with a capacity of 45,000 people. For the first time in the history of the Universiades, twenty-seven sports were included in Kazan 2013, of the optional sports chosen, belt wrestling, boxing, sambo, rugby sevens, and synchronized swimming made their debut at the 2013 Summer Universiade. A total of 162 nations were officially entered prior to the opening ceremony, in the list below, the number of athletes from each nation is given in parentheses. The largest national teams were from Russia, Ukraine, Canada, from the official web sites medal tally information, * Host nation Record Russia got almost half of gold medals and more than a quarter of all medals
6.
Boxing
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Boxing is a combat sport in which two people wearing protective gloves throw punches at each other for a predetermined set of time in a boxing ring. Amateur boxing is both an Olympic and Commonwealth Games sport and is a fixture in most international games—it also has its own World Championships. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds, in the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, the fight is considered a draw. In Olympic boxing, due to the fact that a winner must be declared, in the case of a draw - the judges use technical criteria to choose the most deserving winner of the bout. While people have fought in combat since before the dawn of history. The earliest evidence for fist fighting with any kind of gloves can be found on Minoan Crete, in Ancient Greece boxing was a well developed sport and enjoyed consistent popularity. In Olympic terms, it was first introduced in the 23rd Olympiad,688 B. C, the boxers would wind leather thongs around their hands in order to protect them. There were no rounds and boxers fought until one of them acknowledged defeat or could not continue, weight categories were not used, which meant heavyweights had a tendency to dominate. It was the head of the opponent which was primarily targeted, Boxing was a popular spectator sport in Ancient Rome. In order for the fighters to protect themselves against their opponents they wrapped leather thongs around their fists, eventually harder leather was used and the thong soon became a weapon. The Romans even introduced metal studs to the thongs to make the cestus which then led to a more sinister weapon called the myrmex, Fighting events were held at Roman Amphitheatres. The Roman form of boxing was often a fight until death to please the spectators who gathered at such events, however, especially in later times, purchased slaves and trained combat performers were valuable commodities, and their lives were not given up without due consideration. Often slaves were used against one another in a circle marked on the floor and this is where the term ring came from. In AD393, during the Roman gladiator period, boxing was abolished due to excessive brutality and it was not until the late 17th century that boxing re-surfaced in London. Records of Classical boxing activity disappeared after the fall of the Western Roman Empire when the wearing of weapons became common once again, however, there are detailed records of various fist-fighting sports that were maintained in different cities and provinces of Italy between the 12th and 17th centuries. There was also a sport in ancient Rus called Kulachniy Boy or Fist Fighting, as the wearing of swords became less common, there was renewed interest in fencing with the fists. The sport would later resurface in England during the early 16th century in the form of bare-knuckle boxing sometimes referred to as prizefighting. The first documented account of a fight in England appeared in 1681 in the London Protestant Mercury
7.
Boxing at the 1960 Summer Olympics
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Italy and the United States dominated boxing at the 1960 Summer Olympics, winning three gold medals for each country. Two of the gold medalists later became champions in professional boxing, Cassius Clay. Frank Kisekka, 5-0 Kiyoshi Tanabe def, mircea Dobrescu,4,1 Sergei Sivko def. Manfred Homberg,5,0 Gyula Török def, miguel Angel Botta,5,0 Abdel Moneim El-Guindi def. Humberto Barrera,4,1 Sergei Sivko def, Kiyoshi Tanabe,4,1 Gyula Török def. Abdel Moneim El-Guindi,4,1 Gyula Török def, Sergei Sivko,3,2 Zbigniew Pietrzykowski def. Carl Crawford, 5–0 Petar Spassov def, johnny Ould, 4–1 Matti Aho def. Colm McCoy, 4–0 Gennadiy Shatkov def, ray Cillien, 5–0 Cassius Clay def. Yvon Becaus, stoppage – 2nd round Anthony Madigan def, lars-Olof Norling, 5–0 Gheorghe Negrea def. George Oywello, 5–0 Giulio Saraudi def, muhammad Safdar, 5–0 Rafael Gargiulo def. José Leite, stoppage – 1st round Zbigniew Pietrzykowski def, emil Willer, 5–0 Petar Spassov def. Matti Aho, 5–0 Cassius Clay def, Gennadiy Shatkov, 5–0 Anthony Madigan def. Gheorghe Negrea, ko – 2nd round Giulio Saraudi def, Rafael Gargiulo, 5–0 Zbigniew Pietrzykowski def. Petar Spassov, 5–0 Cassius Clay def, Anthony Madigan, 5–0 Zbigniew Pietrzykowski def. Giulio Saraudi, 5–0 Cassius Clay def, thomas Dave, 5-0 Percy Jr Price def Ron Taylor, ko 2 round Andrey Abramov def Manuel Garcia stop 1 round Franco de Piccoli def Willy Venneman, Abandon 1 round Official Olympic Report
8.
Amateur boxing
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Amateur boxing is a variant of boxing practised at the collegiate level, at the Olympic Games, Pan American Games and Commonwealth Games, as well as many associations. Amateur boxing bouts are short in duration, comprising three rounds of three minutes in men, and four rounds of two minutes in women, each with an interval between rounds. Mens senior bouts changed in format from four, two-minute rounds to three, three-minute rounds on January 1,2009 and this type of competition prizes point-scoring blows, based on number of clean punches landed, rather than physical power. Also, this format allows tournaments to feature several bouts over several days, unlike professional boxing. Head protection was used in competition until March 2016, before it was removed by the AIBA due to a higher concussion rate with Head Protection. However, womens boxing will continue with Head Protection, after the AIBA announced that they did not have data to decide if there was higher risk of concussion in women. A referee monitors the fight to ensure that competitors use only legal blows, referees also ensure that the boxers dont use holding tactics to prevent the opponent from swinging. Referees will stop the bout if a boxer is seriously injured, bouts which end this way may be noted as RSC, RSCI RSCH or KO. Amateur boxing emerged as a sport during the mid-to-late 19th century, in England, the Amateur Boxing Association was formed in 1880 when twelve clubs affiliated. It held its first championships the following year, four weight classes were contested, Featherweight, Lightweight, Middleweight and Heavyweight. By 1902, American boxers were contesting the titles in the A. B. A, Championships, which, therefore, took on an international complexion. By 1924, the A. B. A. had 105 clubs in affiliation, Boxing first appeared at the Olympic Games in 1904 and, apart from the Games of 1912, has always been part of them. From 1972 to 2004, Cuba and the United States won the most Gold Medals,29 for Cuba and 21 for the U. S, the first World Amateur Boxing Championships were staged in 1974. Computer scoring was introduced to the Olympics in 1992, each of the five judges had a keypad with a red and a blue button. The judges pressed a button for which ever corner they felt landed a scoring blow, three out of the five judges had to press the button for the same boxer within a one-second window in order for the point to score. A legal scoring blow was that which is landed cleanly with the surface of the glove, within the scoring area. As long as the punches landed within the area, they are legal. The AIBA introduced a new scoring system in January 2011, each judge gives an individual score for each boxer
9.
Nino Benvenuti
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Giovanni Nino Benvenuti is a retired Italian boxer and actor. As an amateur welterweight boxer he won the Italian title in 1956–60, the European title in 1957 and 1959, in 1961, having an amateur record of 119-1, he turned professional and won world titles in the light-middleweight and twice in the middleweight division. Near the end of his career he appeared in Sundance. On 20 January 1961, Benvenuti made his boxing debut. He then won 29 fights in a row before challenging for the Italian Middleweight title, on 1 March 1963 and his winning streak extended to 30 when he knocked out Truppi in round eleven. His winning streak reached 46 wins in a row when he met former world Junior Middleweight champion Denny Moyer on 18 September 1964, beating Moyer on points in ten rounds. After reaching 55 wins in a row, including a knockout of Truppi in a rematch, he met world Jr. Middleweight champion Sandro Mazzinghi in Milan. This was a fight the Italian public clamored for, both men were Italian, both men claimed to be the best in their division, and they had expressed desire to fight each other, Benvenuti became the world junior middleweight champion with a sixth-round knockout win. A rematch with Mazzinghi took place on 17 December 1965, Benvenuti deemed his first loss as a professional as an unjustified decision for the local boxer, and, frustrated by it, he decided to concentrate on the middleweight division instead. On a rematch at Shea Stadium on 29 September 1967, he lost by a decision in fifteen rounds, on 14 December 1968, in San Remo, he and Fullmer met once again, and Benvenuti retained the world middleweight title with a fifteen-round decision. On 26 May 1969, Benvenuti was outpointed over ten rounds by world Light Heavyweight champion Dick Tiger in an over-the-weight, from the first round, Scott was warned repeatedly, and with increasing intensity from the referee, about attempted butting. Scott, a young fighter unschooled in the European insistence on what his trainer referred to as that, round Seven saw the stoppage, the referee asserting attempted butting, Fraser Scott and corner forever insisting he had ducked. On 22 November 1969, he beat former world Welterweight champion Luis Rodriguez by knockout in 11 rounds to, in 1971, after losing a ten-round decision to Jose Chirino, Benvenuti got a rematch with Monzon for the world middleweight title. Benvenuti was once beaten by Monzon, this time by knockout in round three on 8 May 1971, in Monte Carlo. He announced his retirement there, and never returned to boxing, Benvenuti had a record of 82 wins,7 losses and 1 draw in 90 professional boxing bouts, with 35 wins by knockout. In 1992 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, in 1961 Benvenuti married Giuliana Fonzari, they had four sons and adopted a Tunisian girl. They later divorced, and Benvenuti married Nadia Bertorello, with whom he had one daughter, after retiring from boxing Benvenuti became a successful businessman, show host and city counselor in Trieste. He opened a restaurant and forged friendships with Monzon and Griffith
10.
Boxing at the 2008 Summer Olympics
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The boxing programme of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China was held at the Workers Indoor Arena. Medals were awarded in eleven events, with each event corresponding to a weight division of male boxers. The 2008 games were the last Olympic boxing competition to exclude women, like other Olympic combat sports, two bronze medals are awarded, in the case of boxing, both losing semi-finalists receive a bronze medal, with no further play-off. As a result, the quarter-final essentially equates to a medal match, a semi-final to a silver medal match. 44 medals are available,22 of which are bronze medals. Nine places will be reserved for the host nation, from which it will choose 6 places maximum, for each athlete from the host NOC who qualifies through the AIBA World Amateur Boxing Championships, the host nation will lose a guaranteed place
