Today the 11th series of the European Curling Cup in honour of Nursultan Nazarbayev and the Championship of the Country 2017 has completed at Almaty Arena.
The women's Almaty city sports team got the title of the winner of the Kazakhstan Curling Championship with second place being claimed by the Sever team (North Kazakhstan region) and third place being taken by the SOIK's team (The Union of Organisations of the Kazakhstan Disabled People).
The Juniors team became the holder of the Eurasian Cup in honour of Nursultan Nazarbayev. Second and third places were claimed by Astana and Seniors (veterans) respectively.
The competitions were intended for testing ahead of the 28th Worldwide Winter Universiade. There 10 teams competed and the tournament as round-robin competitions commenced on 17 January.
A FISU's technical delegate Jeanette Johnston rated highly the whole tournament and the infrastructure of Almaty Arena noting that the Kazakhstanis took into account all the requirements and thus a representative of the Worldwide sport student movement offered no reproaches as to the Universiade. Also Mrs. Johnston pointed out that the heritage of the Universiade must be exploited to the full by possibly preparing a world-class competitive team at Almaty Arena.
Following the curling tournament Secretary General of the Kazakhstan Curling Association and the chief coach of the national team Viktor Kim expressed satisfaction with the competitions completed underscoring that the Kazakhstan's national team has gained a good experience ahead of the main start of the season. The men's participants were distributed among varied teams with the girls playing as a single team. At the same time, the ice underwent a successful laser and electronic testing.
The participants noted that special significance for this kind of sport is attached to ice. For the purpose of the Universiade Mark Callan, one of the curling prize winners resurfaced ice and he also prepared ice for the Olympic Games 2014 in Sochi.
Curling is only gaining popularity in our country. This kind of sport develops not only the muscle memory and helps to build on physical strength but also enhances the ability to work in a team and develops the intellectual abilities as long as it calls on maximal concentration of attention, the ability to reason and see the situation a few steps ahead.
