An international ice hockey tournament will be held in Ashgabat on April 15-20, 2024. The corresponding decree was signed by President Serdar Berdimuhamedov at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers on Friday.
The tournament will be held in the capital's Winter Sports Complex "in order to further strengthen friendship and brotherhood, good neighborliness between peoples, popularize physical education and sports, actively affirm the principles of a healthy lifestyle in society, widely involve the younger generation in sports, as well as to further enhance the international sports prestige of the country," the document says.
As a GA correspondent was told in the State Committee Turkmenistan in Physical Education and Sports, at least 10 teams are expected to participate in the tournament, including from Belarus, Bahrain, Iran, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Oman, Uzbekistan, Turkey and other countries. The final number of participants in the competition will be announced later.
The team of Turkmenistan at the tournament will be represented by the eight-time champion of the country “Galkan”, representing the sports club of the same name of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
In the coming days, Turkmen hockey players will face two serious exam at important competitions. The national team will take part in the World Championship of the third division of Group “A”, which will be held from March 10 to 16 in Bishkek. Teams from the Kyrgyz Republic, Luxembourg, Mexico, Thailand, Turkmenistan and South Africa will compete for the only place in the second division of Group B.
And the junior team will compete at the world championship of the third division of group “B”, which will take place from March 4 to 7 in Cape Town with the participation of teams from Hong Kong, Thailand, Turkmenistan and South Africa.
For Turkmen juniors, this will be their debut at competitions of this rank, for which our hockey players prepared under the leadership of Guvanch Dzheparov and Maksat Ataev.
Last year, the junior team of Turkmenistan won silver medals at the first Asian and Oceanian Championships among players under 18 years of age, held in Ulaanbaatar, in which teams from Uzbekistan, Mongolia, the UAE, Thailand and Iran also took part.
