section_path: Sports
section_name: Sports
paragraph_text: Sports
  
  Over 500 Olympic sports champions lived in the city by 2005. Moscow is home to 63 stadiums (besides eight football and eleven light athletics maneges), of which Luzhniki Stadium is the largest and the 4th biggest in Europe (it hosted the 1998–99 UEFA Cup, 2007–08 UEFA Champions League finals, the 1980 Summer Olympics, and the 2018 FIFA World Cup with 7 games total, including the final). Forty other sports complexes are located within the city, including 24 with artificial ice. The Olympic Stadium was the world's first indoor arena for bandy and hosted the Bandy World Championship twice. Moscow was again the host of the competition in 2010, this time in Krylatskoye. That arena has also hosted the World Speed Skating Championships. There are also seven horse racing tracks in Moscow, of which Central Moscow Hippodrome, founded in 1834, is the largest.
  
  Moscow was the host city of the 1980 Summer Olympics, with the yachting events being held at Tallinn, in present-day Estonia. Large sports facilities and the main international airport, Sheremetyevo Terminal 2, were built in preparation for the 1980 Summer Olympics. Moscow had made a bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. However, when final voting commenced on July 6, 2005, Moscow was the first city to be eliminated from further rounds. The Games were awarded to London.
  
  The most titled ice hockey team in the Soviet Union and in the world, HC CSKA Moscow comes from Moscow. Other big ice hockey clubs from Moscow are HC Dynamo Moscow, which was the second most titled team in the Soviet Union, and HC Spartak Moscow.
  
  The most titled Soviet, Russian, and one of the most titled Euroleague clubs, is the basketball club from Moscow PBC CSKA Moscow. Moscow hosted the EuroBasket in 1953 and 1965.
  
  Moscow had more winners at the USSR and Russian Chess Championship than any other city.
  
  The most titled volleyball team in the Soviet Union and in Europe (CEV Champions League) is VC CSKA Moscow.
  
  In football, FC Spartak Moscow has won more championship titles in the Russian Premier League than any other team. They were second only to FC Dynamo Kyiv in Soviet times. PFC CSKA Moscow became the first Russian football team to win a UEFA title, the UEFA Cup (present-day UEFA Europa League). FC Lokomotiv Moscow, FC Dynamo Moscow and FC Torpedo Moscow are other professional football teams also based in Moscow.
  
  Moscow houses other prominent football, ice hockey, and basketball teams. Because sports organisations in the Soviet Union were once highly centralized, two of the best Union-level teams represented defence and law-enforcing agencies: the Armed Forces (CSKA) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Dinamo). There were army and police teams in most major cities. As a result, Spartak, CSKA, and Dinamo were among the best-funded teams in the USSR.
  
  The Irina Viner-Usmanova Gymnastics Palace is located in the Luzniki Olympic Complex. The building works started in 2017 and the opening ceremony took place on June 18, 2019. The investor of the Palace is the billionaire Alisher Usmanov, husband of the former gymnast and gymnastics coach Irina Viner-Usmanova. The total surface of the building is 23,500 m, which include 3 fitness rooms, locker rooms, rooms reserved for referees and coaches, saunas, a canteen, a cafeteria, 2 ball halls, a Medical center, a hall reserved for journalists, and a hotel for athletes.
  
  Because of Moscow's cold local climate, winter sports have a following. Many of Moscow's large parks offer marked trails for skiing and frozen ponds for skating.
  
  Moscow hosts the annual Kremlin Cup, a popular tennis tournament on both the WTA and ATP tours. It is one of the ten Tier-I events on the women's tour and a host of Russian players feature every year.
  
  SC Olimpiyskiy hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, the first and so far the only Eurovision Song Contest arranged in Russia.
  
  Slava Moscow is a professional rugby club, competing in the national Professional Rugby League. Former rugby league heavyweights RC Lokomotiv have entered the same league as of 2011. The Luzhniki Stadium also hosted the 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens.
  
  In bandy, one of the most successful clubs in the world is 20 times Russian League champions Dynamo Moscow. They have also won the World Cup thrice and European Cup six times.
  
  MFK Dinamo Moskva is one of the major futsal clubs in Europe, having won the Futsal Champions League title once.
  
  When Russia was selected to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the Luzhniki Stadium got an increased capacity, by almost 10,000 new seats, in addition to a further two stadiums that have been built: the Dynamo Stadium, and the Spartak Stadium, although the first one later was dismissed from having World Cup matches.