10th ANNIVERSARY OF DOWNSIDE UP IN RUSSIA

RUSSIAN CHALLENGE Charity Ski Race for corporate teams and private individuals. 10th February, 2007 , Bitsa

With the support of the Public Relations Committee of the Moscow Government

General support

With the support of

If you would like to help children, get on the skis!

On 10th February 2007, in the frame work of "Doing good by doing sports" project, at the Bitsa Recreation Zone, the 4th "Russian Challenge" Charity Ski Race took place in the benefit of children with Down syndrome (DS) in Russia.

The charity ski race was dedicated to the X Anniversary of Downside Up in Russia with the aim of raising funds for early intervention programmes for children with Down syndrome and to call attention of the society to the problems that children with special needs face.

And we did it!

First-of-all, this year we raised around 700 thousand rubles in support of hundreds of families with Down syndrome in Russia. Secondly, the charity ski race already aired on TV channel One, in the programme "Vremya"; channel Rossia, in the programme "Vesti"; channel TVCentre, programme "Sobitya"; channel Stolitsa Plus. Journalists are preparing publications for newspapers "Vechernyaya Moskva", "Komsomol'skaya pravda", "Zhizn' za vsiu nedelyu, for magazines "OK" and "Gloria", as well as for the information websites RIA - Novosti, Regnum and others.

We thank the Moscow Public Relations Committee, Information Centre "Blagotovoritel'nost' v Rossii", Newspaper "The Moscow Times", and the Communication Group "Insiders" for their support.

78 people participated at the "Russian Challenge" Charity Ski Race : corporate teams "TNT Express", "PPE Group", "Deloitte", "Danfoss", "AIG/Lincoln", "Cushman&Wakefield, Stiles&Riabokobylko", "Juralink Consultancy", participants from companies such as "Evropeiskaya Torgovaya Sistema Nedvizhimosti", "3R Recruitment", "Veles Kapital", "Pony Express", and private individuals.

Team of parents of children with Down syndrome and the Downside Up team joined us. Downside Up team was composed of: Downside Up staff: fundraising and marketing director, Irina Menshenina and teachers' assistant Maria Nefedova --- a woman with DS, as well as theatre and cinema actors, Elena Drobisheva and Anna Gorshkova who support the charity.

WE CONGRATULATE OUR WINNERS:
In the relay race of teams:
1 place - Danfoss
2 place - AIG/Lincoln
3 place - Deloitte

Distance of 1 Km, women:
1 place - Sofia Kuman (Downside Up)
2 place - Famke van Zwol (the Netherlands)
3 place - Maria Yakovleva (AIG/Lincoln)

Distance of 1 Km, men:
1 place - Aslan Kipov (AIG/Lincoln)
2 place - Alexei Mitukhin (Downside Up)
3 place - Vasily Dobrinov (TNT Express)

Distance of 3 Km, women:
1 place - Sian MacLeod (Embassy of the Great Britain)
2 place - Polina Fillipova (Deloitte)
3 place - Sieta Sijperda (the Netherlands)

Distance of 3 Km, men:
1 place - Timofei Kusin
2 place - Nikita Kuzin
3 place - Zaul Kipov (AIG/Lincoln)

Distance of 5 Km, women:
1 place - Ekaterina Borisova
2 place - Irina Menshenina (Downside Up)
3 place - Olga Guseva

Distance of 5 Km, men:
1 place - Vladimir Feoktistov (Pony Express)
2 place - David Graud
3 place - Maksim Gulevich

Distance of 10 Km, men:
1 place - Alexander Evsikov
2 place - Joe Schafer
3 place - Denis Sakhnuk

We thank the trading house "Лыжный Мир", "JamilCo", "Tetley", "CFS", "Технология Игр", "Парламент", "Вода "Гучковская", and "Объединенные кондитеры" for their help by donating products and rendering services.

There were gathered around 300 people at the Bitsa Recreation Zone, the music was playing, children where amusing themselves with snow balls, and grownups were drinking the mulled wine and warming up in a cosy tent.

The world holds itself on kind people. So remember, that making the life of Down syndrome children more fulfilling and happy only depends on us!

Look at the photos and smile!
Sincerely yours,
Downside Up

The photos of the race

Many thanks to our partners!

The competition Report