The first week of the academic year at RIOU was rich not only in welcome speeches, educational workshops and lectures. One of RIOU's long-standing traditions is to hold its own Olympic Games with a focus on true Olympic values, allowing the new students, who have just embarked on their studies, to develop closer bonds with their classmates in an informal setting.

The RIOU Olympics were held at Sochi’s sports school #1, with three teams formed of students (Russian-language and international MSA and Master of Sport Management classes) and one team including RIOU staff and graduates.

The competition programme was designed in such a way so as to give every team member a chance to contribute to their team’s success.

The participants competed in five unusual disciplines: streetball, open gate penalty shoot-out, “bouncers”, target shooting and a fun relay race with rules that were unknown even to the organisers.

Friendly in their spirit, the Games also featured intense competition, sporting enthusiasm, great thrill and a will to win on the part of every team.

The winners were chosen by the Chief Judge, and the best score was achieved by the Red Machine – a team consisting of students on the Master of Sport Management course traditionally clad in red T-shirts displaying the RIOU logo.

The RIOU Olympics ended with fanfare, music and a cake carrying the university’s logo, as well as an awards ceremony with individual and team prizes. The Best Fan prize was duly awarded to the youngest spectator at the Games, who supported and inspired his mother – student on RIOU’s Master of Sport Administration course and Honoured Master of Sport in freestyle skiing Valeriya Demidova.

Catch the competition highlights in our photo selection and a video clip!