MOSCOW — When 16-year-old goalkeeper Ivan Zaborovsky was rushed to hospital after being struck by lighting during a warmup, few thought he would survive.

Footage from the Moscow stadium where his youth team, FC Znamya Truda, were training on July 4 showed a lightning bolt ripping through a gloomy sky and landing directly on Zaborovsky, who crashed onto the ground unconscious.

A 16-year-old goalkeeper in Russia’s third tier is lucky to be alive after being struck by lightning during a training session on July 4. 

Ivan Zakborovsky can be seen in a video preparing to take a shot on goal while his teammates trained on the near touchline. Right before taking the shot a bolt of lightning struck Zakborovsky. His team, Znamya Truda, tweeted a video of the incident and an update on his condition.

Момент удара молнии

MOSCOW — Russia's Sports Minister said on Friday he welcomed a decision by the authorities to allow spectators into stadiums when matches in the country's top professional soccer league resume next month.

The Russian Premier League halted matches in mid-March because of the COVID-19 crisis and is set to resume action on June 21.

"It's important that the soccer championship resumes in the presence of spectators, even though small in number," Russian news agencies quoted Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin as saying.

Social distancing may have stopped players and club officials from meeting in person but Zenit St. Petersburg had a novel idea when it delivered their Player of the Month award using a drone.

Brazilian Malcom won nearly 30 percent of the fan vote to pick up the award for March after Zenit build a nine-point lead at the top of the Russian Premier League standings before the season was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Jordan Larsson, son of Sweden and Celtic legend Henrik Larsson, secured a victory for Spartak Moscow over heated city rival CSKA with a game-winning goal in the Russian Cup on Wednesday. 

After letting an early 2-0 lead slip, Spartak required extra time to get past CSKA in the Main Moscow Derby. Having come into the game in the 74th minute in place of new signing Aleksandr Sobolev, Larsson latched onto a long ball in the 107th minute and rifled a low finish past Igor Akinfeev to put Spartak into the Russian Cup semifinals, 3-2.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has hit Russia with a four-year ban from international sport after a special meeting at the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Switzerland resulted in a unanimous vote to suspend the nation. 

The suspension results in Russia being banned from participating at next summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. However, the decision from WADA doesn’t affect Russia’s participation at UEFA Euro 2020 since the tournament isn’t classified as a “major event.”

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Monday recommended banning Russia from global sports for four years, including a ban on hosting major events. Oddly, any such ban will not affect the Russia Euro 2020 team, because it does not fall under WADA’s “major event” classification. But questions remain about the 2022 World Cup.