The Small Olympic Games for international students took place for the third time in Penza on 10^th and 11^th of October. Penza State University, with more than 1500 international students currently, was the initiator and organizer of the international sport contest.

The Small Olympics have already grown from 8 teams of 16 countries participating in the first games to 15 teams of 30 countries in the present games. The athletes are students from Armenia, Congo, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Palestine, Tajikistan and others.

Vice-Rector for International Affairs, S. Vasin, greeted the participants and noted that sport at the university is an international phenomenon. He also stressed that through sport the students are urged to pursue healthy lifestyle. That is why the importance of such games is not to be underestimated. ‘It is when competing in a team, in a fair fight against opponents, that the true brotherhood is born and people are ready to stand by and support each other. In this way the person cultivates the best moral qualities’, he concluded.

The international athletes competed at two large sport centres of the city and encompassed contests in football, volleyball, steetball, badminton, chess, ping pong, swimming, and arm-wrestling.