Ski track for everybody!

On Sunday, February, 13th in spite of the strong frost more than 6 000 Smolensk young and old people went skiing to say proudly: "I'm a participant of the "Ski track of Russia!".

The most popular all-Russian cross-country skiing is supported by admirers of healthy life-style in 70 more regions of the country.

Addressing the amateurs and professional sportsmen with words of encouragement Governor of the region Sergey Antufiev said that again people of the Smolensk land showed their love to sport: "Seeing such involvement and enthusiasm we understand that the regional authorities are going in the right direction and developing the favorite kinds of sports of the nation. They are building modern sports gyms and palaces of sport. We will do everything to make the Smolensk region a sport power of Russia!"

The Head of the region gave awards to the winners and prize-winners of the rounds of professional sportsmen. Aleksey Shapovalov (Safonovo) won the 10km race. Andrey Mazepkin (Gagarin) got the second place, Maksim Lisichkin from Smolensk got the third place.

Among women a student of the Academy of Physical Training Irina Chernyaeva took first place, the second place went to an Olympic champion Nadezda Talantova. The bronze medal went to a skier from Safonovo Evgenya Shpakova. The most experient participant of the competition who overcame the distance of 10 km was Victor Andreevich Borisenkov from Yartsevo.

In other races the places were given to:

- among young men: Pavel Kosachev (Gagarin) got the 1st place, Andrey Trusov (the village of Verkhnedneprovsky of the Dorogobuzh region) got the 2nd place, Ilya Ruzhentsev from Vyazma got the 3rd place.

- among young women: Nadezhda Fedorova (Safonovo), Anna Karpova (Safonovo), Arina Ovchinnikova (Smolensk);

- sports families: the 1st place went to the Lapins (Shumyachi), the 2nd place - the Solonnikovs (Smolensk), the 3rd place - the Malchenkovs (Smolensk).

The winners and prize-winners of the competition were presented with some prizes from the Ministry of Sports and tourism of Russia, party  "United Russia", regional department of Sberbank Rossii (Savings Bank of the Russian Federation), Pensioners Union, companies "Technosat" and "Kluch zdorovya" (Key to Health). On the same day mass starts of the sports event "Ski trace of Russia" took place in Gagarin, Vyazma, Dukhovschina and Roslavl.