Sport in Kazakhstan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kazakhstanis consistently perform well in Olympic competitions, especially in boxing. This has brought some attention to the Central Asian nation, and increased awareness of its existence in the Western world.
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[edit] Cycling
Alexander Vinokourov represents Kazakhstan in his cycling career for the Spanish Astana-Würth Team. Vinokourov has an impressive cycling record finishing third overall in the 2003 Tour de France. Vinokourov finished 5th in the 2005 Tour de France, while two other young Kazakhstanis, Kashechkin and Iglinskiy, finished 19th and 37th, respectively. In 2006 Vinokourov's team became known as "Team Astana" after a horrible drug doping scandal forced his team (AKA Liberty Seguras) from the 2006 Tour de France. Vinokourov helped form a new team funded by a comglomeration of Kazakhstan businesses and adopted the color of the Kazakh flag for its uniforms. That same year, Vinokourov and Kashechkin took first and third places in general classification at Vuelta a Espana'06 in Spain.
In September of 2006, Vino won the 61st Vuelta a España by attacking Alejandro Valverde in dramatic fashion with 23km to go in Stage 17. He then held on to his lead over the next four stages, including the final individual time trial to win the Vuelta.
Another famous professional cyclist, Andrei Kivilev, died after a crash in the 2003 edition of the Paris-Nice race.
[edit] Rhythmic gymnastics
Aliya Yussupova placed 4th in Summer Olympic Games in Athens. She has been among medal winners in several previous tournaments. Currently, she is considered to be one of the top rhythmic gymnasts in the world.
[edit] Boxing
Kazakh boxers are generally well known in the world. In last 3 Olympic games their performance was assessed as one of the best and they had more medals than any countries in the world except Cuba and Russia (in all three games). In 1996 and 2004 two Kazakh boxers (Vasiliy Jirov in 1996 and Bakhtiyar Artayev in 2004) were recognized as the best boxers for their techniques with the Val Barker trophy, awarded to the best boxer of the tournament.
Kazakh boxers performed well in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Two boxers, Bekzat Sattarkhanov and Yermakhan Ibraimov, earned gold medals. Another two boxers, Bulat Jumadilov and Mukhtarkhan Dildabekov, earned silver medals.
It should also be noted that Kazakhstani boxer, Oleg Maskaev, is currently the WBC Heavyweight Champion after knocking out Hasim Rahman on August 12, 2006.
[edit] Hockey
The Kazakhstani national ice hockey team has competed in ice hockey in the 1998 and 2006 Winter Olympics as well as in the 2006 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships. Kazakhstan has 8 teams in the Kazakh League. The teams are Kazzinc-Torpedo Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhmis Karaganda, Gornyak Rudnyi, Barys Astana, Irtysh Pavlodar, Kazakhmis-2 Karaganda, Yenbek Almaty, CSKA Temirtau. Most teams however play in Russian hockey leagues.
