Soccer

Armenia are hosting one of World Cup 2010 Group 5 leaders, Bosnia-Herzegovina, this weekend. The match at the Vazgen Sargsyan Republican Stadium on Saturday kicks off at 8.00 pm Yerevan time.

The fixture on September 5 is the second match of the two teams in the current qualifying campaign. In the first played in Bosnia last fall Armenia lost 1-4.

Armenia have only one point in six matches played in the Group so far and are bottom in the six-nation group that also includes Spain, Turkey, Belgium and Estonia.

Besides Bosnia-Herzegovina Armenia are also scheduled to play Belgium and Spain in Yerevan (Sept. 9 and Oct. 10, respectively), and travel to Turkey for an away game on October 14.

(So far, the towns of Kayseri, in central Anatolia, and Bursa, in northwestern Turkey, have been mentioned as possible venues for the Turkey v Armenia fixture).

(Reference links: www.ffa.am; www.fifa.com)

Chess

Armenia’s top chess player Levon Aronyan will be among the challengers of the FIDE world championship crown after becoming an early Grand Prix winner last month.

At the fifth FIDE Grand Prix tournament named after world champion Tigran Petrosyan and held in the Armenian resort town of Jermuk on August 8-24, Aronyan placed second and totally scored 500 points in the Grand Prix series. He thus has become unreachable for opponents regardless of the last 6th tournament in the series to be held in December.

The result also means that the Armenian grandmaster has qualified for a tournament of contenders for the FIDE world chess crown as the winner of the Grand Prix series.

(Reference links: www.armchess.am, www.fide.com)

Judo

Two government ministers of Azerbaijan were in Armenia this week to negotiate the terms of the participation of Azeri athletes in the European junior judo championships to be held in Yerevan September 11-13, reported the Armenian Judo Federation.

Azerbaijan’s Sport Minister Azad Rahimov and Labor Minister Fizuli Alekperov (also head of Azerbaijan’s judo federation) signed a document with Armenian counterpart structures on the security of Azeri sportsmen in Armenia. Representatives of European judo and Olympic structures attended the meeting in Yerevan on September 2.

No athlete from Azerbaijan has participated in sporting events organized in Armenia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the war between the two neighboring countries over Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan is now expected to send a 14-member delegation, including 8 sportsmen to Yerevan to compete in a tournament that is expected to bring together several hundred junior judo fighters from more than 40 countries of Europe.

At the world judo championships held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in late August, Hovhannes Davtyan (60 kg) won bronze thus bringing Armenia its first ever world championship medal in judo, reports www.sportinfo.am.