Next up for preview is the team from St. Petersburg State University. This university needs no introduction – 3 world champion titles, 6 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze medals.
You may know their coach – Andrey Lopatin who has been awarded 2 world titles as a contestant (2000, 2001) and 1 as a coach (2014). Numerous personal titles, including the TCO Marathon win. Lopatin was the SPb SU coach on every final since 2003 (which means next year he will receive the Senior Coach Award).
The team itself is no piece of cake either. Stanislav Ershov, Igor Pyshkin and Alexey Gordeev all qualified for various onsite competitions. As a team they finished 2nd in NEERC, 4th in OpenCup standings (2nd among World Finals teams), 2nd in Ural Championship. I hope they would not mind to add another 2nd place to their collection, though they certainly would strive for more. After all, for the past 4 years the World Championship Cup has gone to the city of St. Petersburg. Good luck!
