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Fact of the day
Frank Kugler won four Olympics medals in freestyle wrestling, weightlifting and tug of war at St Louis in 1904, making him the only competitor to win a medal in three different sports at the same Games. He claimed a silver medal in the heavyweight category in wrestling, bronze in the two hand lift and all-around dumbbell events in weightlifting and another bronze in the tug of war competition as a member of Southwest Turnverein of Saint Louis No. 2 team. He is recognised as an American by the International Olympic Committee although he was a German national at the time of the Games.
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Key decisions made at World Combat Games meeting
Monday, 01 October 2012
October 1 - A meeting has been held in St Petersburg, at which a number of key marketing decisions have been made as part of preparations for the second edition of the World Combat Games, which will be held in the Russian city in 2013.Next year's event, which will take place from October 18 to 26, will be the second time it has been held following the inaugural edition in Beijing in 2010.
The Games are being organised by SportAccord and the Russian Martial Arts Union (RUMA), and this latest meeting follows on from one held at the SportAccord Convention in Québec City earlier this year.
St Petersburg will also be hosting next year's SportAccord Convention, and the city has recently hosted a SportAccord media workshop.
The gathering was aimed to define a communication and media strategy for the Games next year.
Vincent Gaillard, SportAccord director general, and Nathalie Smeeman, its marketing and communications director, presented the event and the goals that they hope to achieve in the coming months.
These include a maximisation of the media value for each of the 15 martial arts and combat sports.
Fencing will make its World Combat Games debut in 2013They also discussed how to create international and national attention for the event, building up the image of athletes and promoting exchanges between international federations.
St Petersburg was represented at the meeting by Nikolay Rastvortsev, the first deputy chairman of the Committee of Physical Culture and Sport.
A brand for the World Combat Games will be defined in the upcoming months to promote the Games locally and internationally, with logos, mascots and pictograms also to be released shortly.
International Federation delegates also had the opportunity to visit and evaluate the competition venues which will be used for the event.
RUMA chief executive Pavel Zhuravlev also took the opportunity to present an extensive progress report to international federations.
Martial arts are popular in St Petersburg, with 35,000 children taking part in various disciplines and combat sports in the city at present.
There are more than 60 international competitions in these sports held annually in St Petersburg, which has played host to world championships in fencing, Sambo, Ju-Jitsu and Para-Taekwondo in recent years.
Two sports will make their World Combat Games debuts in 2013; fencing and savate.
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