#WUAlmaty2017 – Flag bearers are ready to go

ALMATY – Being a flag-bearer of your country is not only a great honour, but it also means you have deserved it by your previous sporting success. We are revealing some of the athletes who will be proudly carrying flag of their country tonight at the Opening Ceremony on the 28^th Winter Universiade in Almaty.

U-Media Reporter Lucie Hrdlickova interviews Adam ZikaNorway has chosen Steffen Walstad, skip of the Norwegian curling team, who won a golden medal on the 27th Winter Universiade in Granada. As he graduates this year, this is his last time attending the Universiade. And there is no better way of saying goodbye than to carry a Norwegian flag.
Thee Canadian flag will also be in the hands of a curler. Kelsey Rocque is a world champion from the University of Alberta. Rocque’s appointment marks the third consecutive Winter Universiade where a curling skip has been named the Canadian flag bearer for the opening ceremony. “It’s such an incredible feeling. It’s just completely unexpected. Curling is a four-person sport, so to be part of something this big with Canadian athletes from so many sports is pretty unbelievable,” said Rocque.
Uganda has only one representative, but he’s worth a hundred. Born in a country without snow, Brolin Mawejje tried snowboard for the first time at the age of 15 in Lincoln, Massachusetts. He moved to the States because of his mother and graduated of Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. His biggest dream is to become the first Ugandan to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Speed skater Ellia Smeding, British champion in the 500m, 1000m and the 1500m, has been selected as the Great Britain’s flag-bearer. Student of the Hanzehogeschool in the Netherlands pioneered the rebirth of British long track speed skating and has broken all British Junior Girls records in the last three years.
The flag of the Czech Republic will be carried by downhill skier Adam Zika. He was evaluated as the best athlete in alpine disciplines at the 2011 Winter Universiade in Erzurum by winning gold medal in Super G and the overall combination, silver in giant slalom and bronze in slalom. The FISU TV caught him training on Shymbulak and asked him a few questions.
The FISU flag will be carried into the Arena by seven star Kazakh athletes. One of them is Vasilly Nikolayevich Podkorytov, biathlete and multiple champion of Kazakhstan, silver medallist from the 2011 Winter Universiade in Turkey. We will also have a chance to see Yekaterina Valeryevna Aygova, speed skater who participated in the 2010 and 2014 Olympic Games.

Lucie Hrdlickova, FISU U-Media Reporter