Russia in strong lead of medals standings after Day 7 of 1st European Games in Baku

MOSCOW, June 18. /TASS/. The Russian national team has maintained its lead in the medals of the 1st European Games, underway this month in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, after Day 7 of the international sports competition. As of Thursday, the Russian athletes have already packed home a total of 40 medals, which include 22 gold, nine silver and nine bronze medals and they are followed by hosts Azerbaijan with 29 medals (12 gold, five silver and 12 bronze medals). According to the official website of the tournament, the top ten standings of the national teams at the 1st European Games in Baku as of June 18 are as follows: 1. Russia - 40 medals (22-9-9) 2. Azerbaijan - 29 medals (12-5-12) 3. Hungary - 13 medals (7-1-5) 4. Belarus - 19 medals (6-3-10) 5. Germany - 18 medals (5-6-7) 6. Turkey - 20 medals (5-3-12) 7. Serbia - 8 medals (5-3-0) 8. Great Britain - 8 medals (4-1-3) 9. Ukraine - 18 medals (3-6-9) 10. Spain - 13 medals (3-6-4) The 1st European Games are held in Baku between June 12 and 28, with athletes competing for the total of 253 sets of medals in 20 sports. Competitions in 11 sports - archery, athletics, boxing, beach volleyball, wrestling, cycling, shooting, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo and triathlon - are also the qualifiers for athletes to reserve places in their national teams for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro. The current competition in Baku is the inaugural edition of the European Games, which is the multi-sport event embracing athletes from the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) of Europe. The Azerbaijani capital was awarded the historic right to be the first city hosting the European Games on December 8, 2012 at the 41st European Olympic Committee (EOC) General Assembly in Italy’s Rome. The European Games will be held every four years and the next international competition will take place in 2019. A total of over 6,000 athletes from 50 European NOCs are competing at 18 competition venues located in four separate clusters of Baku. Five of the venues were built specially for the European Games and they are the National Gymnastics Arena, BMX Velopark, Baku Aquatics Centre, Baku Shooting Centre and Olympic Stadium. Read more