Sports
Donetsk is a large sports center, has a developed infrastructure. Donetsk has repeatedly held international competitions - Davis Cup, UEFA Champions League. Representatives of the city are the leaders in Ukraine in sports such as football, boxing, tennis, athletics and others.
But the most popular in Donetsk is football. Three major professional football clubs play in the city, which include two clubs in the Ukrainian Premier League and one in the Ukrainian Second League: Shakhtar Donetsk, which plays at the Donbass Arena, Metalurh Donetsk, which plays at the Metalurh Stadium, and FC Olimpik Donetsk. Shakhtar Donetsk is 7-times winner of Ukrainian Championship and 8-time winner of Ukrainian Cup. In 2009, they became the second team from Ukraine (after Dynamo Kiev) to win a European competition, the UEFA Cup, beating Werder Bremen in the final. This also made them the last UEFA Cup winners before the tournament was rebranded as the UEFA Europa League. Shakhtar is now one of the most well-known clubs in Europe.
Donbass Arena was opened on 29 August 2009 and became the first stadium in Eastern Europe designed and constructed according to UEFA standards for stadiums of "Elite" category.
Hockey club HC Donbass won the championship in Ukraine, and after playing one season in the Russian Major League, the club has built a Kontinental Hockey League regulation arena and joned the Kontinental Hockey League in 2012. When moving to play in the Russian Major League the club created a farm club to play in Ukraine called HC Donbass-2 which also won the local championship.
MFC Shakhtar Donetsk won the Ukrainian futsal championship five times. The team was dissolved in January 2011 mid-way through the season.
VC Shakhtar Donetsk were the last team to win the Soviet Volleyball Championship, in 1992.
The city also has a team in the Ukrainian Basketball Super League, BC Donetsk, winner of Ukrainian Superleague (2012), three-times silver medal winner (2011, 2009, 1996), bronze medal winner (1996)
In Donetsk, the USSR Tennis Championship took place within the city in 1978, 1979 and 1980 near the Donetsk Railroad tennis courts. Some tennis matches of the Davis Cup took place in Donetsk in 2005. In Donetsk, the Soviet Championship on Light Athletics in Youth took place in 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1984. A monument to famous pole vault athlete Serhiy Bubka is installed in the city.
Donetsk annual held "Pole Vault Stars".
In the city, sailboat championships take place on the city's Kalmius River.
When the joint bid for the UEFA Euro 2012 was won by Poland and Ukraine, Donetsk's Donbass Arena was chosen as the location for three Group D matches, one quarter-final match, and one semi-final match. The RSK Olimpiyskyi Stadium was chosen as a reserve stadium.
Donetsk was chosen as the location for the IIHF Continental Cup 2013 ice hockey Super Final on 11-13 January.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)
“Guys do not have a genetic blueprint that allows them to understand or love sports.”
—Lesley Visser, U.S. sports reporter and announcer. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 82 (June 17, 1991)