Baku enters Top 3 most sporting cities of May
By Amina Nazarli
This May Azerbaijan’s capital Baku will become a paradise for
sport fans, since the country has scheduled several major
international sporting events.
Russian famous tourist service Travel.ru included Baku in Top 3
most popular cities to visit sporting events in May for Russian
tourists.
The “City of Winds” Baku going to host Tour d`Azerbaijan, was
placed second following Moscow, which will host Ice Hockey World
Championship and leaving behind Barcelona to host Formula 1 Grand
Prix of Europe.
The UCI 2.1 five-day Tour d’Azerbaidjan stage race held from May
4 to 8 will involve 21 teams from 19 countries. Tour d’Azerbaidjan
2016 will be the fifth edition of the event, which started in 2012
as the Heydar Aliyev Anniversary Tour (U23) and in 2012 - the tour
became an annual event, later being transformed into Tour
d'Azerbaidjan.
The international tour will again take the peloton on a trip across
Azerbaijan – from the Caspian shores to the Caucasus Mountains. The
race will be held across Baku, Sumgayit, Absheron, Ismayilli,
Gabala, Mingachevir and Sheki.
Recently, Baku once again proved that the city is one of the leading sports capitals, by holding Baku Marathon-2016, which brought together 7,000 runners to overcome a 21km distance.
To date, such marathons have been held in London, Paris, Boston, New York, Chicago, Berlin, Barcelona, Istanbul and other cities and by hosting the event Baku stood on a par with these cities.
Up to now, Azerbaijan has successfully hosted over 300 international sports events, including European and world championships, which increased the international Olympic family`s confidence in the country.
This summer Baku will host one of the world’s richest forms of motorsport to be held on the streets of the country’s booming capital Baku for the first time. Scheduled for June 17-19 the Baku City Circuit will be the second longest F1 track on the calendar, with a length slightly over six kilometers as an anti-clockwise layout.
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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
Twitter: @amina_nazarli
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