Kazakhstan athletes have won 15 medals at the Universiade so far. One more gold medal was received by biathlete Galina Vishnevskaya. She won 7.5 kilometers sprint race.

GALINA VISHNEVSKAYA, UNIVERSIADE 2017 CHAMPION:

I am so happy, even though I was so nervous before the start. However, I am still thinking about the upcoming tournaments like the World Championship and Asian Games that will be held right after the Universiade. This race was quite challenging but we made it.

Kazakh freestyle skiers Yuliya Galysheva and Dmitry Reiherd won the high class award. Another Kazakh athlete Pavel Kolmakov won bronze medal in mogul skiing. Kazakhstan is occupying the second place in the overall standings. Russia is on the first place. Meanwhile, 32 women participated in 3-km sprint race in the high-mountain skating rink Medeo. Belarusian Maria Zuyeva finished first. Men’s 500 meter sprint race kicked off just after where the Korean athlete won the gold medal.

Japanese athletes showed the best results in women’s ski jumping. A Czech athlete took the third place. 12 female athletes from seven countries fought for victory. It was the first time when Kazakhstan participated in this type of sport. There was also a men’s competition among 53 athletes from 16 states including Kazakhstan.

PAVEL VASILYEV, HEAD COACH, KAZAKHSTAN’S NATIONAL SKI JUMPING TEAM:

The team is well prepared. We were trained mainly in Europe; we spent 7 months in the training camp. We have also participated in various competitions. Our athletes Muminov Sabyrzhan and Sergei Tkachenko demonstrated good results during the training.

Women’s figure skating competition was held in the Almaty Arena. On the first day, athletes showed a short program. Among the participants were Kazakh Zhansaya Adykhanova, Aiza Mambekova and Veronika Shevelyova. All of them are qualified to participate in free skating.

AIZA MAMBEKOVA, FIGURE SKATER, KAZAKHSTAN:

It was very exciting to perform at home, I heard people cheering us. At the beginning of skating, I made a mistake and fell down but its ok, we only fall to rise back up. I hope I will perform much better in a free skating tomorrow.

Figure skaters will compete in free skating for one more day. In addition, various sporting facilities in Almaty will host competitions in biathlon, curling, speed skating, Nordic combined, snow board, ice hockey, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, and mogul skiing. On February 3, the athletes will compete for Universiade awards in parallel mogul.