SPIEF sporting events to be dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory Day
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum Sports Games will be dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.
The Victory Cup show jumping final, opening the Games program, will be held May 7-11. One of the tournament's goals is to educate young athletes about the heroism of the Soviet people during the war years.
‘Fonbet Roscongress Cup’ ice hockey will be dedicated to Olympic champion Nikolai Sologubov. During the war, the future hockey player was seriously injured. In February 1944, he ran into a mine, as a result of which his tibia and fibula were fractured, and his ankle was shattered. The doctors were about to amputate his leg, but Sologubov himself forbade them to do so. After the war ended, he not only recovered, but also became one of the strongest defencemen of the first generation of Soviet hockey players. Sologubov was the first Soviet defence player to score 100 goals. As a member of the USSR national team, he won gold at the Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo and became a two-time world champion.
The teams Business, Politics, St. Petersburg Administration and Champion sports and business community will play for the Nikolai Sologubov Cup at SPIEF. The uniforms of all teams will be stylised in the era of the late 1940s.
“In 2025, on the initiative of the Ministry of Sport, 80th anniversary of the Victory became the theme of key competitions in all sports. It was front-line athletes who became domestic pioneers on the international sports scene and brought the country its first gold medals at the Olympic Games, world and European championships. The example of courage, resilience and overcoming of great athletes of the post-war era should become a benchmark for young people, so it is important to tell stories about the fates of athletes from the Winners’ generation. In this regard, the Roscongress Foundation decided to dedicate sporting events of the main business event of the year to front-line athletes,” noted Georgy Bryusov, Member of the Supervisory Board of the Roscongress Foundation.
The gala match ‘Roscongress Basketball Cup’ will be held in the format of SPEIF Team – St. Petersburg team. The main trophy of the match will be dedicated to Ivan Lysov, the silver medallist of the 1952 Olympics, who was awarded the Order of the Red Star. In May 1943 he took part in a friendly basketball tournament in Leningrad. After the end of the war, he became one of the leading basketball players of the Soviet Union. As a member of the national team, Lysov won twice at the European Championships (1947, 1951). Lysov won two more golds as a coach. The USSR women’s national team under his leadership became the best on the continent in 1954 and 1956.
A mass race ‘Fight and Win’ will be held in dedication to the Victory anniversary. Track and field races were the most mass physical training events during the Great Patriotic War. Tens of thousands of people took part in them in the spring and summer of 1944. Participants of the SPIEF race will learn about interesting facts about sports events during the war before the start of the five-kilometre race.
To learn more about the sports and entertainment programme, go to the official Forum website:
All news about SPIEF sporting events: https://t.me/Sport_Roscongress
