Gazprom – general sponsor of national Olympic Team
RELEASE
Release
Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee and Alexander Zhukov, President of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation in the Gazprom headquarters today.
Gazprom will support the national Olympic team as a general sponsor. The Company will allocate funds for Russian athletes' training for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro (2016) and Pyeongchang (2018).
“It is important that Gazprom carries out social tasks and offers sufficient support for sports activities across Russia. In this respect, the Company's focus is on the Russian Olympic movement. Olympic victories always make us feel proud of our country. Like the whole Russia, Gazprom will carry on making its contribution to Olympic achievements of the Russian athletes,” said Alexey Miller.
“Our partnership was a real success and produced excellent results. Thanks to Gazprom, ROC was able to invite the best coaches and high class experts, including the international ones, to train the Russian team for the Sochi Olympics. All the purchase orders made by national federations to assist in the extensive Olympics preparations were completed. All that efforts played a starring role in brilliant performance of the Russian sportsmen. We hope that our cooperation with Gazprom will be fruitful and help gaining Olympic medals in Rio de Janeiro and Pyeongchang,” noted Alexander Zhukov.
Ilya Chernousov (Russia) wins bronze medal in men’s mass start (cross-country skiing) of Sochi Olympics. Photo by RIA Novosti
Background
The history of broad cooperation between Gazprom and the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) is dated back to 2001, when the program on long-term cooperation was inked by the parties.
Gazprom sponsored ROC to train Russian sportsmen for the Olympic Games hosted in:
- Salt Lake City (2002);
- Athens (2004);
- London (2012);
- Sochi (2014).
As part of the preparations for the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, Gazprom built unique infrastructure and sports facilities. First of all, the Company secured reliable power supplies to the city and Olympic facilities. Gazprom constructed the first Russian offshore pipeline, i.e. Dzhubga – Lazarevskoye – Sochi, conveying gas to Russia's most state-of-the-art Adler TPP, also built by Gazprom.
The Company constructed the Mountain Olympic Village for 1,100 persons, modern aerial cableways, infrastructure facilities of the Mountain Tourist Center and Russia's one-of-a-kind Biathlon & Ski Complex in the medium-height mountains, where Russian sportsmen won 2 gold, 5 silver and 2 bronze medals.
Following purchase orders by national federations, specialist sports equipment was bought; thanks to cooperation between Gazprom and the Russian Olympic Committee a lot of activities were carried out to create an ideal accommodation and services for Russian athletes. The best coaches and experts worked with our team; also, all the necessary conditions were created as well as large-scale innovations were used to support the Russian team's smooth and goal-oriented training in the Olympic facilities before the Sochi Games. All above-mentioned played a vital role in securing Russia's success in such sports (relatively new to the national team) as short track and snowboard, and also contributed to medals in figure skating, cross-country skiing, bobsleigh and other sports; as a result, the Russian team had the most number of gold medals and led the table with the most number of awards.
At the same time, the Russian team set up several national records during the 22nd Winter Olympic Games. Bearing in mind the achieved results, the cooperation between Gazprom and the Russian Olympic Committee during the preparations for the 22nd Winter Olympic Games is regarded as productive one and will be successfully continued.