Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

After successfully hosting the impressive 17-day European Games, Azerbaijan may consider holding even more major sporting events.

The Baku 2015 European Games, gathered over 6,000 athletes to compete in 20 sports in Baku. The country has constructed all of the necessary state-of-the-art venues to host the 16 Olympic-style sports, 12 of which were qualifiers for the 2016 Olympics in Rio, and the four non-Olympic sports that made their international debuts in this format.

Oleg Matytsin, the president of the Russian Students Sport Union, said Baku may become a candidate to host the 2019 Summer Universiade.

“Today, a number of countries are considering potential candidacy for holding the Universiade-2019,” Matytsin stressed at the FISU Executive Committee meeting held in Gwangju, South Korea on June 30-July 1. “Those countries are Italy, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku.”

However, none of the abovementioned countries have officially confirmed their desire to host the Universiade, said Matytsin, adding that the negotiations are underway.

He said that the candidates for hosting 2019 Summer Universiade will be presented at a meeting of the FISU General Assembly to be held in November.

The 2019 Summer Universiade was initially scheduled for Brasília, Brazil in July 2019. However, on December 23, 2014 it was confirmed that Brasília pulled its candidacy, citing financial problems.

Therefore, the International University Sports Federation decided to reopen the bidding process after the withdrawal.

The 2015 Summer Universiade will be held in Gwangju from July 4 to 14. The 2019 Winter Universiade is going to be held in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan is preparing to host several large-scale events such as the Islamic Solidarity Games, Formula 1 racing, and the quarterfinals and three group games for Euro 2020.

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

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