Kazakhstan’s national Universiade team finished in 15th place in the medals standings at the Dec. 11 – 21 Universiade in Trentino, Italy with two gold medals, two silver and one bronze.
Kazakhstan’s hockey team also attracted attention by beating Canada and the United States in the early rounds and nearly beating Canada again in the finals.
The Kazakh hockey team went undefeated until the finals, beating Ukraine (4:2), Japan (3:1), and even Canada (4:2) in the round robin before knocking out Latvia in the quarters (6:1) and the U.S. in the semifinals (5:1) to face Canada again in the finals.
The confidence level of the Kazakh team was high at the start of the final game with Alexander Shin scoring 14 seconds into the contest assisted by Yevgeniy Rymarev. However, the Canadian team rose to the challenge. From the fourth to the eighth minute, the Canadians scored three times to finish the first period. Mike Cazzola, Josh Day and Mathew Maione scored Canada’s first-period goals.
In the second, Kazakhstan tried to come back, but failed. After the second intermission, the score was 5-1 with goals by Canada’s Chris Culligan and Nick MacNeil.
In the third, despite the game being seemingly out of reach, the Kazakhs continued to press and scored one more goal, but it was too late. The Canadians scored one more goal and took the gold medal with a 6 to 2 victory. Kazakhstan took the silver and Russia took home the bronze.
Kazakhs who won gold medals included skier Tatyana Ossipova and the men’s cross country ski team (Alexander Malyshev, Sergei Malyshev, Gennadiy Matvienko and Mark Statostin) who won in the relay. Mark Starostin also won silver in an individual race. And the women’s cross country ski team (Olga Mandryka, Marina Matrossova and Tatyana Ossipova) took home a bronze medal in the relay.
Russia placed first in the overall medal count with 50 medals, including 15 gold. The Russians were followed by South Korea at 24 medals, including eight gold, and Poland with 23 medals, including 10 gold. A total of 30 nations participated in the games.
The next Universiade will be held in Spain in 2015 and then in Almaty in 2017.
