The Kazakh Academy of Sports and Tourism has held a meeting dedicated to the presentation of the Basketball Academy of the Olympic champion Alzhan Zharmukhamedov. The USSR Honored Master of Sports, 1972 Olympic Champion, 1972 Olympic bronze medalist, silver and bronze medalist of world championships, European champion, nine-times USSR basketball champion, lived in Moscow for many years. Now that his school has opened in Almaty, he has returned to his favourite city to lift the sport to a proper level.

Kairat Zakiryanov, President, Kazakh Academy of Sports and Tourism
«Our current achievements are modest not only in the world but also in smaller arenas.»

Alzhan Zharmukhamedov, Basketball School Principal
«Kazakhstan’s basketball is going through hard times and it is not represented in the world widely. It is not in the Olympics, even this year they haven’t been participating in the Asian qualifying rounds that took place in Uzbekistan. They could not go there and participate in the Asian Games qualifying tournament.»

The school intends to train professional basketball players who will be working at the Kazakh Academy of Sports and Tourism. In the next seven years, the coaches are going to bring up a generation of high-class athletes. For a start, they showed the young people an example by having a friendly game of basketball between veterans and students of the Academy.