Remember Physical Culture Day by participating in the sports festival

Thank you for remembering the Universiade again

Thanks to local fans of extreme power sports, there will be an opportunity to once again remember the 10th anniversary of the Kazan Universiade. Especially now, in the days when the Summer Universiade is coming to an end in China, and Russia is going to hold the Student Sports Festival, which is expected in Yekaterinburg.

Kazan has used the right to recall its 2013 Universiade, and in honour of its 10th anniversary, 10 representatives of power extreme will pull a coupling of five KAMAZ trucks weighing 100 tonnes. If we draw historical parallels, then we can also recall the famous painting “Barge Haulers on the Volga”, since power extremalists previously took out cars, even planes alone, and we will have some kind of interaction experiment, “teamwork”.

This is curious and, to some extent, exclusive, because, for example, in Moscow, which also announced its programme for Physical Culture Day, the directions of power extreme and bodybuilding will focus more on visualisation, a fitness bikini competition, bodybuilding on the beach and so on. While we have time, I would like to advise the Kazan organisers of the holiday to saturate their venues with the heroes of the Kazan Universiade as much as possible in order to remember not only the holiday itself, but also to visualise it in their own way.

From the history of the holiday

Physical Culture Day was recognised as an All-Union holiday in 1939, which made athletes, physical culturists, and military personnel of our country incredibly happy. The first two categories received a professional holiday, which in the absence of international starts (which is similar to the current situation) allowed the masters of sports of that time to show off their acquired skills. And the servicemen, in honour of the holiday, received “Narkomovskie 100 grams”.

What was the relationship between Day of Physical Culture, the officer-soldier corps of the USSR Air Force, and Kliment Voroshilov, who at that time headed the Armed Forces as People's Commissar of Defense, is a mystery of the past, but both of these initiatives found a positive response among the masses of those years.

In 1961, when a separate date was allocated for the celebration of Day of Physical Culture, namely the second Saturday of August, the “Narkomovskie 100 grams” were not cancelled, although Rodion Malinovsky was in charge of the army at that time, and he was already in the post of Minister of Defense.

But the relationship between physical education and military service can be traced to the present day, and at the next celebration of Day of Physical Culture in Kazan, events that seemed to be something relict recently are going to be held — competitions for passing the GTO standards (“Ready for Labour and Defence”).

From swims and races to beach volleyball

A lot of events awaits active lifestyle lovers. Swimming heats, cycling races, and athletics races of the Kazan Triathlon participants are held from August 11 to 12. The participation of about a thousand people from three dozen cities of Russia has been announced. The representatives of sailing will gather in the water area of Kazanka.

Therefore, join the sports fans, as the organisers are ready to involve everyone, both old and young. Older Kazan residents will be offered to participate in Nordic walking competitions, young people will be given the opportunity to spend this weekend actively and even more variably. You can become fans at the competitions of your peers, and this is the first draw of the championship belt in boxing among juniors, and the tennis championship in Almetyevsk, the championship of Russia in karting in Bogatye Saby, a little older than the “young” can fight in streetball and watch demonstrations in judo, karate, curling wrestling, taekwondo, fencing, rhythmic gymnastics, badminton, the main thing is to get applied benefits from attending these events, which is to get acquainted with all the sports cultivated in Kazan and learn about the opportunity to enroll in sports clubs.

The cherry on the cake of Physical Culture Day in Kazan is going to be the beach volley tournament “Beach Stars”. Representatives of the majority of Kazan team sports are going to compete in beach volleyball. On mature reflection, this is a well-chosen confrontation, since beach volleyball is the only non-contact team game sport in which powerful rugby players of Strela could compete with hockey players of Ak Bars with relatively slender, in comparison with them, basketball players of UNICS, floorball players of Irbis, and football players of Rubin. There will also be representatives of the profile sport among the participants — Zenit-Kazan volleyball players, and therefore, the promised autograph session promises to be as “hot” as possible, the most star athletes will be in the maximum “walking distance”. The epicenter of most sports activities will be Uram extreme park, and there they will arrange a photo shoot against the background of KAMAZ trucks themselves, full-fledged participants of the recent Silk Road International Rally.