Sergei Sobyanin: Moscow expands infrastructure for 5.5 mln people to go in for sports

Moscow continues to actively develop sports infrastructure. “Since 2010, with a lot of new public sports grounds, the number of citizens involved in sports has grown 2.6 times up to 5,480,000 people; in fact Moscow has 29,015 recreational areas,” wrote Sergei Sobyanin on his telegram channel.

The city held 295 large-scale sports tournaments, more than 20,000 sports events included in the Unified Calendar, plus many unofficial sports competitions.

Last year, they launched 21 sports facilities with another 1,200 recreational areas.

Sporting Moscow: from simulators to motordromes

The core of Moscow sports infrastructure is publicly available facilities, such as sports grounds and outdoor exercise equipment in yards and parks, wellness and fitness centers, skating rinks, and skiing tracks, while the city got another 1,200 recreational areas in 2022. Today, Moscow has 29,015 sports facilities, including:

— 9,067 sports grounds and fields;

— 8,542 sports halls;

— 4,988 gyms;

— 1,449 pools;

— 1,338 football fields, arenas and related sites;

— 1,298 athletics tracks and sectors;

— 806 outdoor and indoor tennis courts;

— 421 ski tracks and slopes;

— 206 ice arenas and skating rinks (including 106 indoor ones). In winter, there are extra 1,260 skating rinks in the yards and school or park areas;

— 170 sport equipment rentals;

— 140 beach sports facilities;

— 123 running and bicycle tracks in parks;

— 112 roller rinks and skate parks;

— 110 horse riding fields and manèges;

— 103 shooting grounds and ranges;

— 51 artificial rock walls;

— 30 motordromes;

— 19 cycling tracks and velodromes;

— 16 indoor and outdoor extreme sports facilities;

— 13 paintball fields;

— 13 rowing camps and pools.

The absolute majority (> 24,300) of them is owned by the city of Moscow, with 836 facilities (e.g., university or departmental sports complexes) of federal ownership and more than 3,800 recreational areas owned privately.

With 134 sports in total, the city is estimated to have over 8,000 organizations engaged in sports activities.

Sporting event calendar

In 2022, the capital held over 20,000 events covered by the Unified Calendar of Physical Cultural, Sports and Mass Sporting Events.

These include:

— 295 big tournaments, including the Hand-to-Hand Fighting World Championship and World Championship stage (in the absolute weight category for men), the Moscow Open International Chess Forum, Goodwill Cup international kayaking and canoeing competitions, Moscow Open 3x3 Basketball Cup, National Spartakiade in Summer Sports (among the strongest athletes of 2022), national Field-and-Track Athletics Week, etc.;

— 9,600 mass sporting events, including the Ice of Our Hopes, Leather Ball, Moscow stages of Russian Ski Run and National Cross Country Running, Moscow festivals of GTO, Golden Puck, etc.;

— 10,200 sporting events, including for athletes with disabilities.

Ready for Labor and Defense

The Ready for Labor and Defense (GTO) sporting standards are available at 12 testing GTO centers, with 951,600 people having registered on the GTO website. 779,000 took part in the tests; 368,700 of them met the standards and were awarded GTO insignia, including gold insignia (43.8 per cent), silver insignia (35 per cent) and bronze ones (21.2 per cent).

Professional sports and training athletic talent pool

In 2022, 108,700 people were doing sports at institutions of the Moscow Sports Committee (Moskomsport), including:

— 43,100 at the stage of initial training;

— 55,600 at the major training stage;

— 6,200 at the stage of improving sportsmanship;

— 1,700 at the stage of higher sportsmanship; and

— 2,100 high-class athletes.

The national teams include 5,654 Muscovites; while, on average, Moscow athletes account for 19 per cent in the national sport teams.

In 2022, Moscow athletes won 5,385 medals both in national and international competitions in 102 sports, including 411 medals in international competitions.

Thus, last year, they retained nationwide leadership both in terms of representatives in national teams and in achieved sports results.

Broadening sports infrastructure

In 2022, the city launched 21 large sports facilities, including the Moskvich Football Arena (46/15, Volgogradsky Prospekt, bld. 3), the International Sambo Center and International Boxing Center in Luzhniki (13, Novoluzhnetsky Proyezd), Vorobyovy Gory ski facilities, such as K-40 (K-20) skiing jump, a chairlift, and three tracks, one being over 300-meter long.

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Construction and reconstruction of 14 sports facilities, including the Kristal Ice Sports Palace in Luzhniki and the Nekrasovka Sports Center on Rozhdestvenskaya street, are to be completed this year.

In 2022, they renovated 77 sports facilities and did routine repairs of 101 sites, with 91 facilities to be renovated and 111 to be repaired in 2023.

In addition, they are doing a scheduled modernization of exercise and workout equipment in the yards, parks and school stadiums.

Digitalization of the sports industry

Sports industry digitalization has been pivotal for popularization of exercise and sports in recent years. Thanks to online solutions and services available at mos.ru, Muscovites are able to:

— register a child with a sports school;

— get advice in selecting a sport for children, including online testing;

— find the sporting event calendar;

— learn about sports facilities and choose a coach;

— rent a recreation site in the city.

Digitalization of the sports industry will continue in 2023; in particular, they will launch a mobile app called Moscow Sports for users to quickly select a sports facility or a coach and not to miss sports events, said Sergei Sobyanin.

The key sport-related goals for 2023 include:

— Increase the number of Muscovites who are systematically involved in physical culture and sports up to 5,800,000 people;

— Complete the construction of 14 sports facilities;

— Host 20,000 sporting events included in the Unified Calendar; and

— Launch the Moscow Sports app.