Kazan 2015 presented at Sportaccord convention in Sochi

Present at the event are Director General of the Executive Directorate for Sports Projects, Azat Kadyrov, his deputy Mikhail Zotov and Secretary General of the Directorate, Ranko Tepavcevic. This evening, the latter delivered a report at the meeting with around 5,000 delegates in attendance. Among them were representatives of 92 interantional sports federations, International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other sports-related organisations. 

"First of all, I would like to extend to you all a very warm welcome on behalf of all citizens of the Republic of Tatarstan, the city of Kazan and to thank the organisers for the opportunity to speak at such a major sports forum," Ranko Tepavcevic said greeting the audience. He spoke of Kazan as the city of sports and added that it is dubbed the 'sports capital of Russia' for a good reason. "It is here that many Olympic champions and high-profile athletes reside. Kazan heads the list in terms of achievements in a wide variety of sports, including major team sports," he said and underlined that a large number of new state-of-the-art sports venues have been constructed over the last years in Kazan and all of them meet international requirements and are ready to host competitions of any level. Apart from that, the city has a sophisticated transport and hotel infrastructure and a good potential to draw tourists. The Secretary General also briefed the delegates on the tournaments hosted by Kazan in recent years and those sporting events that are due to be staged in the city in the near future. He also reminded that thanks to a smooth manegement of events Kazan was acknowledged by a number of international awards among them SportAccord, 2013 International Sports Event Management Awards (ISEM).