Azerbaijan among top sport hosting nations

/By AzerNews/

By Amina Nazarli

Sport Market Intelligence has released the list of the top sport hosting nations as well as the top sport hosting cities worldwide.

Azerbaijan was also included in the list of the countries, which is drawn up considering the prestige and the level of organization of the competitions.

Azerbaijan, which hosted a number of world and European Championships ranked 37 among 81 countries, thus leaving behind Argentina, Greece, Ukraine, Portuguese, Serbia and Bulgaria.

The rating of the Land of Fire is estimated at 4111 points and it sits as number three among the CIS countries.

Russia tops the nation list for the second consecutive year, following Canada and the UK. Turkey is on the 18th position.

Among the best sport hosting cities Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, which hosted the inaugural European Games last year, is the 26th city globally with 3974 points. It is followed by Los Angeles, Nanjing, Delhi, Rome, Dubai, Stockholm, Sydney, Cologne, Oslo, and Toronto.

Baku also takes 6th place among the CIS cities, after Moscow, Kazan, Sochi, St. Petersburg and Almaty.

London has retained the first position as the top sport hosting city in the world. Rio de Janeiro sits as the number two city in the world. Moscow, Tokyo and Paris are the third, fourth and fifth ranked city respectively.

2015 was the glorious year for Azerbaijan, as the country hosted the inaugural European Games in Baku, covering a wide variety of sports, attracting millions of spectators and thousands of participants.

One of the most important competitions of FIDE, the World Cup brought together 128 of the best chessplayers from around the world in Baku last year.

The country also hosted Tour d’Azerbaidjan 2015, the cycle race, which brought together 24 teams from around the world, who competed in a five stage race covering the entire Azerbaijan.

Baku also opened the doors for the Europe TOP-16 Table Tennis Tournament hosting 16 male and 16 female players last year.

Another international competition was held in Azerbaijan’s northern region of Gabala, which saw 1,100 of the world’s best marksmen from 90 countries at the International Sport Shooting Federation (ISSF) World Cup Final.

Moreover several world championships in various sports and world cups were also held in the country during 2015 .