The oldest stadium in Krasnodar will resume work in August

New chapter for Dynamo

The main news of the past week can be called the specifics about the resumption of work of the Krasnodar Dynamo stadium. The oldest city arena has been undergoing reconstruction for about ten years. Finally it comes to an end. According to the regional administration and the regional Ministry of Sports, only two percent of the work remains to be completed. And already in August the stadium will be able to start working.

“Dynamo” in the first place, as it was, remains track and field. The arena has eight running tracks, sectors for long and high jumps, an eighty-meter inclined running track, and a field for long throws. Here you can not only conduct training, but also host international competitions.

However, it is not worth talking about just one “queen of sports”. Many other sports can be developed at Dynamo. In the open air there is a football field, two outdoor tennis courts, two mini-football fields with artificial turf, a streetball court, and an outdoor fitness area.

The tribune can accommodate more than 3,500 spectators. Extensive work has been carried out in the grandstand building. There is a boxing and strength training hall, wrestling, shot throwing, volleyball and gymnastics halls, a shooting and archery range, as well as a medical rehabilitation center and doping control rooms.

— This facility is important not only for the sports community. The completion of the reconstruction of the stadium was eagerly awaited by all the residents of our city. Dynamo is an architectural part of the image of Krasnodar and plays an important historical role in the formation and development of sports in the Kuban. I am sure that the renovated complex will start a new chapter in its sports history and give our region many well-known names,” said Minister of Sports of the Krasnodar Territory Serafim Timchenko.

“Kuban” aims for the top three

On the sixth of July, the Kuban women’s handball team completed its vacation. The team started preparing for the season in their native Krasnodar. Club President Evgeny Trefilov has set an ambitious task for the Yellow-Greens in the upcoming Russian Super League championship.

– The goal for Kuban for the season is medals. I will consider another result unsatisfactory with subsequent conclusions, – quotes the words of Yevgeny Trefilov, the press service of Kuban.

Krasnodar retained the backbone of the team that took fifth place in the last championship. Six newcomers joined the team: Regina Yakupova, Anastasia Seradskaya, Angelina Kutsevalova, Diana Kazikhanova, Sofia Morozova and Yulia Kozhubekova. There are no big names among them – new handball players have yet to open up. The team is still headed by Denis Saifulin, whose contract was extended last season.

Training in Krasnodar will last until the sixteenth of July. Then Kuban will hold a training camp in Abrau-Dyurso for two weeks. In August, the “yellow-greens” have two pre-season tournaments scheduled to be held in Astrakhan and Krasnodar.

Competitions in the capital of Kuban are of particular interest. They will be held on August 18-20 at the Olimp Sports Palace and will be dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of the Kuban handball club. In addition to Krasnodar, the current champion and winner of the Russian Cup – CSKA Moscow, Dynamo-Sinara Volgograd and geographical neighbors – Novorossiysk Chernomorochka, which will debut in the Super League, will participate. Teams will play each other in one round.

We will also tell about the Novorossiysk club. He triumphantly spent the first season after his creation. The tournament in the Higher League “Chernomorochka” was very confident, having suffered only one defeat, and took first place ahead of schedule, which gave them the right to move to the Super League.

At the same time, it was obvious that the ambitious team, created on the initiative of the head of the Russian Handball Federation, a native of Novorossiysk, Sergey Shishkarev, did not intend to be content with the status of an outsider in the country’s strongest division. Therefore, the team carried out serious selection work. Enlisted by one of the most experienced domestic mentors: the team was headed by the honored coach of Russia Alexei Gumyanov. He worked in “Lada”, Kuban, recently he worked in the “Star” near Moscow. Last season, this team had a great playoff series, rising from sixth place in the regular season to bronze medals. The “stars” could also play in the final, losing with a minimum difference in the semi-final games to the Rostov-Don club. Gumyanov also remains the head coach of the Russian women’s youth team.

– I accepted the offer of Chernomorochka with enthusiasm and interest. First of all, it is necessary to form a team that will solve ambitious tasks,” Alexey Gumyanov said after the appointment.

The team’s first mentor, Sergei Matyazh, who led the team to the Super League, remained at Chernomorochka as a head coach.

Interestingly, the first experience of the Novorossiysk team playing against a team from the Super League was just against Zvezda in the Russian Cup. At home, Chernomorochka played the first half on an equal footing. And only after the break, the more experienced opponent broke the resistance of the housewives.

Among the team’s recruits, of which there are more than ten, the left welterweight Natalya Nikitina, the former leader of the Zvezda, attracts attention. She was chosen as the new captain of Chernomorochka. The assistants were an old-timer of the team – goalkeeper Elizaveta Dyachenko – and a newcomer from Kuban Valeria Vaikum.

According to Sergei Shishkarev, the team has made a significant step forward and will try to get into the top five in the country.

Men’s Krasnodar SKIF, as we reported, started pre-season work earlier. The new head coach, we recall, was the general director Stepan Sidorchuk, who will combine both positions. The team went to the training camp in the village of Pavlovskaya.

– Taking into account the identified weaknesses last season, we have prepared a training program. We will begin to level the shortcomings and for this fee we will try to put everything in order, – Stepan Sidorchuk told the club’s press service.

– I have already worked with Stepan Alexandrovich in the Russian youth team, so I had a rough idea of ​​what we would do at the training camp. First of all, this is an increased attention to both details and basic things. Without a certain base, it is impossible to come to something more, – said the new captain of the SKIF, Savely Shalabanov.

– The coach focuses on small details. In many teams of masters, this is not given time, because it is believed that players come there already with experience. We have a lot of young people, and we work pointwise, – commented on the work at the training camp Sergey Nikolaenkov, who returned to SKIF this off-season from CSKA.

Handball seasons in Russia traditionally start in early September.

Finale repeat

Slightly more distant start of the season in basketball. But the first rival of the Krasnodar Lokomotiv-Kuban in the VTB United League has already become known. The start of the championship will repeat the final series of the last draw against UNICS Kazan. The game will take place on September 30 in the capital of Tatarstan, on the site of the current winners of the VTB United League.

Loko’s first home match, against the Perm club Parma-Pari, is scheduled for October 5th. On October 9, another game will take place at the Basket Hall – with the capital’s MBA club.

Loko retained one of its leaders, American center Chris Horton. He joined Krasnodar in December 2022 and quickly became a key player. In the 2022/23 season, he accounted for 31 games, where the American scored an average of 11.3 points, made 6.2 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.1 blocks. Russian Grigory Shukhovtsov will continue his career in Krasnodar. For the center this will be the eighth season with Loko.

Temporarily Krasnodar will be left without their head coach Alexander Sekulich. The Slovenian specialist heads the national team of his country, which will take part in the World Cup. On July 17, the team will begin training, and on August 11-12 they will play in control games with the national teams of Spain and the USA.

The Russian team will also hold a training camp from July 23 to August 10. Four Loko basketball players were included in the basis of the national team: defenders Vladislav Yemchenko and Alexander Shcherbenev, forward Anton Kvitkovskikh and center Andrei Martyuk. Another center from Krasnodar – Kirill Elatontsev – is included in the reserve list of the national team.