Putin urges popularising new Olympic sports

Moscow: Russian athletes should try themselves in the modern sports featuring in the Olympics while not forgetting about the traditional ones, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

"We need to pay attention to the new sports which appear in the Olympic programme," Putin told a meeting with winners of 26th Winter World University Games in Trentino, Italy. The president said that traditional sports should not be neglected, because "competition there has been constantly increased". Putin reminded that Russia possessed well-established training capabilities for traditional Olympic sports. In Italy, Russian won 50 medals, which Putin described as a "cool" achievement. Noting that the Russian athletes won medals in such sports like slalom, ski jumping, curling, Putin suggested to open champagne or soft drinks to celebrate the victory. He added that the Universiade winners could be among the medal-bearers of the 2018 Winter Olympics. "Our student sport has been, in general, at a very high level," Putin said. The 26th Winter Universiade took place Dec 11-21 with athletes from 50 countries or regions competed for 78 sets of medals. The Russian delegation, comprising 185 people, took the first place, winning 15 gold, 16 silver, 19 bronze medals.