Amazing victory of Alexander Miloradov on Moscow Open 2013!
The first Moscow Open, held on March 16-17th in a sports complex in the southern-western part of Moscow, granted participants and spectators with an incredible number of sensations and unexpected results. The victory in the prestigeous and highly ranked tournament celebrated 22-year old moscovite Alexander Miloradov, as the first triumph in his carrier. In addition to the Moscow Open-2013 cup alexander received a cheque for 45 thousands roubles and an exclusive diploma.
As a result of the Moscow stage of the World Tour, one of the "Big Six" tournaments, Miloradov improved his position in the World Ranking and first time entered top ten of the players of the planet, reaching the 8th place there.
The prize funds of the table hockey tournament will reach 10 000 dollars!
The prize pool of the Moscow Open - 2013, the successor of the elite stage of the World Tour "Moscow Cup", is formed just two weeks before the start of the event. Except excluzive cups, medals, diplomas and different souveniers with MO-2013 logo, the table hockey masters, traditionally coming to the Russian capital for one of the most popular and high-rated stages of the WTHT, will divide the prize funds of 300 000 roubles, equivalent to 10 000 US dollars.
This became possible thanks to efforts of the organizing committee of Moscow Open - 2013. Intense negotiations were held for weeks to attract new partners to the tournament. Except usual STIGA and Sportmaster brands, permanent partners of RTHF, the international-level tournament gained new sponsors and partners, to be announced later.
RTHF president and head of the organizing committee of MO-2013 Alexey Titov assured that the 10000 dollars prize money is just a first step to achieve professional status for the WTHT tournament in Russian capital with all the corresponding attributes. In this context the new formula of a two-day tournament is in a precise balance: the first day is used for qualification, where everybody can participate, while on the second day the best 60 masters of the game will compete, and even the eliminated on the first stage will get a small compensation in prize money. Similar distribution of prize money can be seen in lawn tennis.
The winner, apart from the main trophy of Moscow Open - 2013, and ranking points in World Ranking, will receive a cheque for 45 000 roubles (1500 USD). All other prize winners and participants of the main round of the tournament will share their parts. The complete scheme of distribution of the prize money among the best 60 of the MO-2013 is presented on the official page of the tournament.
[February 27, 2013] Alexey Titov
Moscow Open 2013 will be held in a new sports complex in the western part of the Russian capital!
The venue of the international table hockey tournament Moscow Open 2013 is chosen. The new hall to host World Tour "Big Six" stage with more then 200 registered players already will be the Sports Complex of the Western Administrative District of Moscow.
Comissioned just few monthes ago the sports hall meets all modern demands. The complex is situated on the Pokryshkin street and still got no official name, but this won't be an obstacle for the newly-built sports enterprize to host a competition of this high rank.
Sports complex provides spacious locker rooms with shower cubicles, and the area of the main hall exceeds 600 square meters. The venue of Moscow Open 2013 is easily reached from any part of Moscow, because the metro station "Yugo-Zapadnaya" is in a close neighborhood.
The organizing committee makes all efforts to make attendance as comfortable as possible. An agreement is reached with the "Skazka" restraunt, just 30 steps away from the venue, to provide lunches both on Saturday and on Sunday for all players and spectators of the MO-2013.
Moscow Open 2013 Logo - new style of the tournament!
Moscow Open 2013, the "Big Six" tournament of the WTHT, got its own style and logo. The brand of the main Russian tournament of the season 2012-13 was designed by a well-known artist Anton Gladkoborodov.
Anton Gladkoborodov founded the design studio Nimbler, media projects "Look At Me", "Theory & Practice", advertisement agency "Talk To Me" and the "Piston Games" company. Not long ago Gladkoborodov has launched a new startup-project Coub - a site with content of new format, but, in spite of his occupancy in the innovation projects he readily accepted offer of the Moscow Open organizing committee to design the logo of the tournament.
With his studio Gladkoborodov developed all scope of the designer solutions resulting in a set of attributes of the planned two-days table hockey fest. The logo of Moscow Open-2013 will be present on all kinds of medium, from an ordinary banner and a label on the cup to diploma and T-shirts with the Moscow Open-2013 prints.
The experienced table hockey players know that Anton Gladkoborodov was one of the first TH players in Russia and developed design of the RTHF site. He is the author of the best up-to-day school of table hockey, presented in the flash animation on the www.board-hockey.ru site. Besides that Anton Gladkoborodov played for Team Russia in two World Championships (2003 and 2005), and twice became the Champion of Russia in teams competitions.
Anton Gladkoborodov: "I took part in organization of first Moscow Cups. We had a concept that the style of the tournament should change each year. This had to show the dynamics of development of table hockey in Russia. Each Cup had its own unique face, each year we looked for a new sports hall. We tried to attract strong international players to the World Tour stage in Russia.
But for the Moscow Open, the successor of the Moscow Cups, I've decided to develop a new image, that would not change from year to year. For the current period of table hockey development in Russia a strong, easily memorizable image should play completely different role. The new style should not flirt, there is no need now to prove its importance as an international tournament, it gained its own character. Moscow Open should become a symbol for every player taking part in the tournament, and this mood should stay from year to year."
It is worth mentioning that the organizing committee decided that, apart to the cups to the prize winners, special diplomas with the Moscow Open-2013 logo will be presented to all players of the Moscow stage of the World Table Hockey Tour.
[February 10, 2013] Alexey Titov
New tournament formula and new way of prize money distribution!
The Moscow Open 2013 stage of the World Table Hockey Tour presents an absolutely new tournament formula. The regulations of the tournament were published today.
The qualification will take place on the first day of the tournament. As usual, the tournament is open and every table hockey player may take part in it. Top 16 (according to the World Ranking) players of the registered participants of Moscow Open 2013 are exempted of the qualification. Still they must show up before the end of verificating registration on the first day and be present in the tournament hall during the opening ceremony.
All other players will decide in two stages 44 passes into the second day of the tournament.
The original formula will continue on the second day, 60 players will be divided into 4 final groups and as much as 32 players will be promoted to play-off.
The main difference of Moscow Open would be the division of the prize money. All 60 players taking part in the second day of the tournament will feel themselves professional players. The amount of prize money is under consideration now, organizers and negotiating with potential sponsors. But already is announced that all prize money will be divided between all participants of the main round of the tournament.
[February 5, 2013] Alexey Titov
Official press-release of Moscow Open 2013.
Moscow Open 2013 is a tournament of the "Bix Six" part of the World Table Hockey Tour, and is a successor of the Moscow Cup series of table hockey tournaments.
The main goal of the organizing committee of Moscow Open 2013 is high level organization of the tournament with the exact adherence to the schedule and to the ITHF Tournament Rules.
Significant prize funds are mandatory as a unique property of the Moscow stage of the WTHT. At the same time, organizing committee will not continue the practice of "personal invitation" of the table hockey stars. All participants of the Moscow Open 2013 will start in equal conditions, and all prize money will be divided between all players who made to the second day of the tournament.
The new team of organizers of the Moscow Open 2013 is making all possible efforts to run the tournament on a high level and to keep all the main traditions of the Moscow Cups.
In 12 years Moscow Cup won high authority and is appreciated by participants. Moscow Cup has a brilliant history and is unique both in development dynamics and in number and quality of players who took part in this main Russian tournament. In 2012 Moscow Cup gathered a record-breaking number of participants for a WTHT tournament, more than 250.
The Moscow Cup was hosted by almost all big stadiums in Moscow: Sports Complex "Olympic", Sports Complex "Krylatskoye", Ice Palace "Megasport" on Khodynka, Basketball Sports Palace "Dymano", Sports Palace "Moskvich", Ice Arena "Mytischi".
The official opening ceremonies were visited by stars of sports (ice hockey players Alexander Khavanov, Alexey Troshchinsky, Andrey Nikolishin, and others) and stars of show business (Valery Meladze, Sergei Galanin, Valeria, Larisa Dolina, and others).
Moscow Cup is the only tournament in the world considering table hockey as a professional sports, with all attributes of such, like significant prize money, presentation on main TV-channels and in other mass-media.
Starting from 2001, when the first Moscow Cup was held, the permanent leader of the organizing committee of the Moscow Cup was its founder Mikhail Margolis, who carried out a tremendous work on promotion of the Moscow Cup brand and of the table hockey sports in general. After the XII Moscow Cup held in 2012 Mikhail Margolis announced of "suspension of his work on organization of the Moscow Cup tournaments".
In the 2012/13 season Russian Table Hockey Federation, after consulting with the ITHF, made a decision to organize a "Big-Six" WTHT tournament in Moscow in the pre-set period of March 16-17, 2013. The new tournament got a new name, Moscow Open.
Follow the news and updates on the RTHF site.
Leader of the Organizing Committee of the Moscow Open 2013
President of the Russian Table Hockey Federation
Alexey Titov
