Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan’s National Olympic Committee met on June 16 with the Azerbaijani athletes, who won medals at the inaugural European Games.

The committee awarded gold medalist wrestler Maria Stadnik, bronze medalist wrestler Natalia Sinishin, and bronze medalists, members of the national team in gymnastics Eldar Safarov, Oleg Stepko and Petr Pakhnuk with diplomas and gifts.

Khazar Isayev, the NOC vice-president and Konul Nurullayeva, the head of Azerbaijani delegation at the Games attended the event.

Addressing the ceremony, Isayev expressed confidence that Azerbaijan will win even more medals in the coming days.

After the awarding ceremony Maria Stadnik at 48 kg shared her impressions with Trend.

“I am so happy to win gold medal and please our people. It is not everyone who has the opportunity to feel the emotions that I felt then. The Games is organized in a high level. Each sportsman strives for success, and want to leave his/her name in the sports’ history,” Maria said.

The sportsman, who repeatedly won gold medals for Azerbaijan, noted that the victory at the Baku 2015 has become very significant for her.

“This is a big honor for me that I came first. I am very pleased that so many spectators supported me. I want to thank all of our fans who watched the competitions. This was a great incentive for us to victory,” she said.

Baku 2015 is the first-ever European Games, an exciting and innovative multi-sport event for the continent that is underway in the capital from June 12 to 28.

More than 6,000 athletes from 50 European countries compete in 20 sporting events. Some 16 of the sports are Olympic and four are non-Olympic.

Azerbaijan joined the struggle for supremacy in the largest sporting event in Europe with 291 athletes. Azerbaijani sportsmen are participating in all sports, giving them an opportunity to win medals in all of the competitions.

The national team show excellent results at the Games, So far, Azerbaijan is in the second place in the overall ranking, following Russia. The team has 17 medals including, seven gold, three silver and seven bronze medals.

Azerbaijani gold medal winners receive 100,000 manats (over $95.300), silver winners are awarded 50,000 manats (over $47,600), and bronze medal winners receive 30,000 manats (over $28,600).

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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