The Belarusian Women's Handball Championship starts today

September 18, Minsk / Igor Khadaevich – BELTA /. In the opening match of the 18th Belarusian Handball Championship among women's teams, Minsk's "Victoria-Regia" and "Vitebsk-Ganna" will compete today, BELTA was informed by the Belarusian Handball Federation. The game will start at 5:00 PM in Minsk at the BSPUFC sports complex. The official solemn opening ceremony of the national championship will take place on September 19 at the sports complex of the Republican Center for Olympic Training in Minsk. Two more matches will be held there – "Berezina" (Bobruisk) – "Gorodnichanka" (Grodno) and "Arkatron" (Minsk) – "Vitebsk-Ganna". In addition to these matches, tomorrow, in the renovated hall of BNTU, its hosts – the current champions of the country – will host Gomel handball players. Another match of the starting round will take place on Saturday at the BSPUFC venue – "Victoria-Regia" – "Drut" (Belynichi). According to the regulations of the competition, the championship will be held in two stages. In the first stage, the teams will play a double round-robin tournament, which will end in February 2010. Then the top six will continue to fight for the awards, playing each other twice more – at home and away. Meanwhile, the men's national championship, which started a week earlier, is gaining momentum. After three rounds, the current champion, Dynamo Minsk, and the silver medalist, Brest BGK, who have won three victories each, have a 100% record – 6 points. Two points behind are Victoria-Regia of the capital and Masheka from Mogilev. In the scorers' competition, Roman Kolesnev from Mogilev leads with 26 goals, and Andrey Novitsky from Kronon Grodno has 22 goals. The next matches will take place on the upcoming weekend: September 19 – Masheka – Victoria-Regia and BGK – SKA (Minsk); September 20 – GGK (Gomel) – HC named after Levin (Novopolotsk) and Kronon – Arkatron. -0-