The Orange Ball

08.12.2014

Street-ball or street basketball originated in the American ghettos in the fifties of the 20-th century acquired the incredible popularity in the whole world thanks to its simplicity and unpretentiousness. What is needed for the game? One ball, one ring and a little playground. At the same time this kind of sport is very dynamic and entertaining. It is attractive for any age.

On November 22 the employees of different structural subdivisions of Bogatyr Coal LLP got together in the sport and health center of the company for the tenth time. They united in little picked teams and participated in the annual championships of the company in street-ball.

The distinctive feature of the competitions in 2014 is a number of teams: three women's teams and nine men's teams. It is many more in comparison with the previous tournaments. Besides, by Head of the Sport and Health Center Valentina Titarenko the teams compositions turned out to be so well-prepared and with a great zeal to win that the intrigue who would become a winner remained till the very last minutes of the competitions.

As usual, "the orange ball" competition was held by classic rules. To justify the game aim - to score as much as possible - the women's teams were given 15 minutes. The men's teams had to do it during 20 minutes. The ladies finished all their matches fast. All went quite calm. The first place was taken by the team of the executive staff. By the way, its captain was Nuriya Galimova - the new trainer of the sport and health center working in this position just for a month. It was her who helped to gain victory points. Basketball, street-ball are her specificity. Nuriya played in the picked teams of Taraz town, Petropavlovsk town, in Astana Tigers team she defended the sport honor of Kazakhstan in international championships. And now Nuriya Galimova will try to share all her expertise and experience to Bogatyr employees during training sessions organized by her. During the championship she took notice of those sportsmen, who would compete for Bogatyr Coal LLP in the town and republican competitions amongst labor collectives.

The picked team of Bogatyr mine headed by Ekaterina Yerezhepova took the second place. The third awardee was the team from Power Supply Department (captain - Inessa Sukhanova).

The sports fights among men were considerably more emotional - there were disputes and active struggle for a ball. Each participant tried to bring his team to victory with all efforts. All this action caused the intensity of emotions of the fans, who came to support their colleagues participating in the street-ball competitions on that day.

But the watchful eye of the judges - Evgeniy Bezborodov, Excavator Operator from Bogatyr mine and Vladimir Rozhok, Section Head from Railroad Equipment Maintenance Department, who had been basketball players in the past, noticed all the scores, gimmicks and mistakes of the players. As a result, the winners were the sportsmen from the executive staff (captain - Tulegen Mukhanov), the second place was taken by the team from the Overburden Complex - Bogatyr-1 (captain - Aleksandr Tereshchenko), and the third place was taken by the team Bogatyr-2 (captain - Darkhan Anafin).

All the prizewinners of the annual championship of Bogatyr Coal LLP in street-ball were awarded with the certificates of honor and cash bonuses. On this weekend, on November 29-30 there will be the championships in volleyball and mini-football held in the sport and health center.

Azaliya Tasheva

Picture by Anatoliy Butyrin