I’m no football freak, but I am enjoying this year’s World Cup. If you have Instagram, you will have seen how the Norway team and its upcoming match with England has caught the imagination of content creators, not just for fun but also for the sake of the tourism industry. Airline SAS and the national tourist organisation have both created some really imaginative material, and I bet lots of people will feel inspired to go on holiday there in the wake of this. This got me thinking about Russia and the Soviet Union and how invisible Russian people would be if it weren’t for sport. There are other fields of cultural endeavour, but it seems to me that sport is the most approachable, accessible cultural form for all people, something that is international, crosses all boundaries. Countries build a face through sport, and that can be about more than tourism. Diplomacy is one thing, soft diplomacy for whole populations more than for statesmen, and in the case of c...
Russian Championship 2026 — Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Event: Floor Exercise Venue: Central Sports Palace, Kaluga, Kaluga Region Dates: 28 June – 6 July 2026 Report generated: 1 July 2026 at 14:44 --- Final Results Place No. Athlete Region Difficulty (D) Execution (E) Penalty (Pen) Total Qualification 1 234 Lyudmila Arkadyevna Roshchina Krasnodar Krai 5.700 8.000 0.00 13.700 Q 1 221 Anna Dmitrievna Kalmykova Moscow 5.700 8.000 0.00 13.700 Q 3 240 Elizaveta Vladimirovna Us Krasnodar Krai 5.500 7.333 0.00 12.833 Q 4 205 Aleksandra Ivanovna Anufrieva Smolensk Region 5.100 7.700 0.00 12.800 Q 5 245 Kristina Konstantinovna Shavlovalova Moscow 5.100 7.533 0.00 12.633 Q 6 207 Varvara Viktorovna Belova Vladimir Region 5.500 7.066 0.00 12.566 Q 7 244 Elena Yuryevna Chursina Moscow 4.500 7.933 0.00 12.433 Q 8 230 Zlata Sergeyevna Osokina Leningrad...