Belarusian cyclists clinch Games of Future champion titles

The first champions of the 2024 Games of the Future have been named in Kazan, Russia.
The first medal event of the games took place in VR cycling. 12 teams, including two men and two women each, competed in the WattAttack simulator. Taking part in the tournament were athletes from Russia, Italy, France, Argentina, Spain, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Portugal, the UK, and Belarus (featuring Hanna Terakh, Taisa Naskovich, Yauhen Sobal and Mikhail Shemetau.

The virtual cycling race consisted of four stages: individual time trial, elimination race, scratch and 30km criterium. Team Belarus seized the lead after the first event of the program - Hanna Terakh scored the maximum points among women, and Mikhail Shemetau became third among men. In the second discipline Hanna Terakh and Taisa Naskovich proved strongest among women.

Yauhen Sobal finished second in the men’s scratch, Taisa Haskovich was third in the women’s event. Team Belarus kept the advantage in the final event to score the total of 522 points to secure the first gold of the Games of the Future. Silver went to Russia’s Marathon-Tula (469 points). Bronze was collected by Italy (425 points).

The 2024 Games of the Future have gathered over 2000 athletes and cyberathletes from 107 countries. Apart from VR Cycling, Belarus is competing in phygital basketball, phygital hockey, phygital martial arts, the battle of robots, World of Talks and Dota 2. The international multi-sport phygital tournament will be over on 3 March.