Bashkir Paralympians were welcomed at Ufa airport

Early this morning winners of the Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi Irek Zaripov, Kirill Mikhailov, Azat Karachurin, Alexander Davidovich, as well as their coaches arrived in Ufa.

The Paralympic athletes were greeted not just as champions, but as people who committed a sporting feat. Recall that among 80 awards won by the Russian Paralympians seven medals were won by Bashkir athletes.

The President of Bashkortostan Rustem Khamitov welcomed champions and winners of the Paralympics together with their relatives, friends and fans.

The head of the republic told about preparing a big celebration in honour of victories of Bashkir athletes at the Olympics and Paralympics in Sochi. The event will take place soon at the Ufa Palace of Sports. It is expected that the Russian short track team will participate in it, the press service of the head region informs.

Also the Minister of Sports and Youth RB Andrey Ivanyuta, relatives and friends of athletes, representatives of media and volunteer centre of Bashkir State Medical University also came at the airport to meet the sports delegation.

The press service of the Ministry of Sports informed that an entertainment program was prepared by dance ensembles from Chishminsky and Mishkinsky regions especially for the athletes arrival. Then Paralympians answered questions of journalists. For example, gold and bronze medal winner Kirill Mikhailov said: "We feel warm welcome at home. We are very home-sick. We were not at home for 2-3 months, talked to the family on the phone or via the Internet. We felt support of all residents of our republic and Russia as a whole. Thank you everybody".

The Olympic short track gold medalist Ruslan Zakharov flew home a few hours after the meeting of Paralympic athletes. He has not been at home for almost two months. Immediately after the Games he went to Montreal at the World Championship as part of the Russian team.