Press Release
Sport'15
The 12th International Exhibition "Sport'15" took place at the All-Russia Exhibition Centre in Moscow on 24-26 March. This is the largest event in the sporting industry. This exhibition has been traditionally organized by the Ministry of Sport of the Russian Federation and the Moscow City Department of Physical Fitness and Sport.
For over twelve years this exhibition has retained its status as a unique professional platform for discussing programs for developing the sporting industry in the Russian Federation, bringing together the best domestic and foreign manufacturers of sporting goods and providers of services, representatives of the business community and state sporting organizations.
The exhibition has now reached a new stage of development, combining under one roof the International Exhibition "Sport", the Third Moscow International Fitness Festival FitExpo, and the "Sportland. Sport as Play" exhibition of children and family leisure.
This year, over 200 Russian and international companies participated in the exhibition, representing 13 different countries. The total exhibition area extended over 21,000 square meters. Over 15,000 people visited the exhibition in the course of three days.
The presence at the exhibition of dynamically growing foreign manufacturers of sporting equipment, tools and kits, together with domestic companies, highlighted the competitive advantages enjoyed by the sector leaders together with the latest trends in the industry's development, and enabled participants to network among the business community. The exhibition's main theme was the state of development and trends in the sporting sector's key segments.
The exhibition was opened by Deputy Minister for Sport of the Russian Federation Yuri Nagornikh. Honored guests at the exhibition included Svetlana Zhirova, First Deputy Chairman for Foreign Affairs of the State Duma and member of the Accounting Commission of the State Duma, Alexei Vorobiev, head of the Moscow City Department of Physical Fitness and Sport, Mikhail Baryshev, Head of the Central Sports Army Club federal autonomous department of the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation, and Vladimir Pogrebenko, General Director of the All-Russia Exhibition Centre.
Yuri Nagornikh commented that, every year in which the exhibition took place, it was consistently the main national exhibition for the sports industry: "Sporting professionals and leading organizers take part in it. Here we have representatives of the very best manufacturers of sporting equipment, we see the latest technologies that are employed in competitions, training and sporting leisure. We have created an excellent platform where participants can not only share experience but can also see for themselves the most advanced achievements."
The first business event in the exhibition's program was the All-Russian conference-seminar "On focus areas for implementing the Federal Target Program "Developing physical fitness and sport in the Russian Federation, 2016-2020"".
"The FTP for 2006-2015 was a breakthrough in creating the conditions for training Russian national teams, Nagornikh pointed out. This work will be continued in the FTP for 2016-2020. In particular, it includes building training bases in middle altitudes and in the Russian Far East. We will also build 17 regional centers for training sports squads for Russian national teams. A particular focus in the program is creating the conditions for sport for the general public. We are planning to build 352 sporting facilities costing up to RUB 100 million based on standard facility types approved by the Ministry of Sport. Moreover, for the first time the program includes subsidies for purchasing sports equipment for specialized schools."
The presentation by the Russia-2018 Organizing Committee on Russia's preparations for the 2018 football World Cup has become a traditional event at the "Sport" exhibition. General Director of Russia-2018 Alexei Sorokin provided an update on preparations for the World Cup, which will take place between 14 June and 15 July at 12 stadiums in 11 Russian cities: Moscow, Kaliningrad, St Petersburg, Volgograd, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Saransk, Rostov on Don, Sochi, and Ekaterinburg. The creation of a tourist portal for World Cup fans was announced. It was further revealed that the opinion of children will be sought when selecting a World Cup mascot: a survey among children will be carried out in May this year. Moreover, experts from Russian fine arts institutions will be involved.
The exhibition also contained a special section on "Marketing opportunities in school and student sports". A mini-stadium was organized over 2,000 square meters and a football tournament was held in it, between teams from children's sporting schools in Moscow. S-Pro Systems, the technical partner of the "Sport" exhibition and the leader in equipping sports facilities with broadcasting systems and creating media infrastructure for arenas, presented a system for broadcast sporting events. Everybody interested was able to speak with the company's engineers to learn more about creating media infrastructure at sporting facilities and the intricacies of broadcasting systems that comply with the regulations of the Russian Premier League, UEFA and FIFA. Partners of this special section were: ISD, Nata-Info, MF-Group, NST, Bamard, Panasonic, AJA, and INTV.
Strong interest was shown by exhibition visitors and participants in the Third Moscow International Fitness Festival FitExpo - a wide-scale event whose program covered dozens of modern focus areas in fitness, sports and healthy living.
The three-day program enabled guests and participants of FitExpo with wide opportunities to find out about the ideology of the fitness industry and its modern technologies. For example, on the "RusFit" platform everybody was able to try the sports training course consisting of various obstacles and engineering constructions, whose design incorporated innovative sporting equipment: the course's architecture allowed participants to assess a number of their physical qualities. Designers of this course included one of the most experienced professional teams in the realm of high-quality fitness equipment in Russia and the CIS - that of Fitness Division - as well as the National Freerope Federation. Fitness Division also arranged exclusive interactive video races on the only exercise bike in the world with RealRider moving handlebars. The festival included the National Freerope Federation Cup, an open training session with Russian freerope champions, and various training sessions and competitions for visitors.
International Exhibition "Sport" has traditionally been a platform for networking by sports industry professionals, the successful promotion of Russian production, and raising the profile of domestic and foreign producers.