Olympic cross-country skiing

The Hnilec valley was the venue last Saturday, February 12th, for the cross-country skiing races forming part of the 9th edition of the annual U. S. Steel Kosice Winter Olympiad. Less than a week before the races the organizers were very pleased to discover that the interest in cross-country skiing among our employees is growing from year to year.
The races took place at the village of Hnilec, where the grand opening ceremony was held at 9.30 am near the start area. The contestants, who lined up all wearing identical winter caps, witnessed the opening of the Olympiad with all the Olympic honors, that is, the hoisting of the flags (of the Olympics and of U. S. Steel Kosice), the lighting of the steelmakers' Olympic flame, and their own taking of the contestants' oath. After this introduction, the second part of the Winter Olympiad was officially opened by Vice-president Personnel and Organization Martin Pitorak. Then things got serious on the cross-country track. The well-prepared and marked-out course was the five-kilometer circuit which is maintained every year for the sake of regularity by the group of skiing officials and referees from the Metropol Sports Club led by race director Juraj Toth.
The racers started off in two lots, the first with a mass start of a 42-member group consisting of the women in all three age categories and the men over fifty years of age. They completed one 5 km circuit together. Half an hour later another 32 men started off in two age categories, namely the under-30's and the under-50's. This Saturday, February 19th, sees the continuation at Jahodna of the 9th U. S. Steel Kosice Winter Olympiad with its third part, the snowboard competition and the giant slalom races. Apart from our Olympiad there will also be the races in the Jan Tichy Memorial competition, starting at 8 am, for our employees' children, and at 10 am for the other children not taking part in the competition there will be the Children's Carnival.

Management team are USSK ice-hockey kings

Tuesday evening saw the closing games in the USSK ice-hockey championships. First there was the third-place match between the Secondary Metallurgy and Cold Strip Mill teams. Then in the final match the reigning champions from the Blast Furnaces took on the Management team. After an exciting struggle the valuable trophy was won by the Management players.

Best research project and best publication in 2004

Every year the General Manager Research and Development awards prizes for the best steelmaking-related research project solution and for the best research publication. In 2004 Frederick Mannion awarded the prize for best research solution to Emil Rendek and Peter Korytko, who were responsible for the research project "Development of TH 370 grade tin-plated sheets annealed on continuous annealing line no. 2". The prize for the best publication, named "Influence of microstructure on the durability of refractory materials", went to the team of Alica Maslejova (RDI), Zuzana Jackova, Dasa Chudikova (Refrako, s.r.o.) a Andrej Lesko (RDI).

One hundred for Jan Zadorozny

On Monday of this week many people, especially younger ones, were drawn to the Transfusion Department of the University Hospital in Kosice by the power of love. On St.Valentine's Day itself many couples decided on blood donorship as a way of confirming their relationship, while others were reacting to the nationwide humanity event called "A Drop for Valentine", organized for the tenth time now by the Slovakian Red Cross. Among the donors there was also USSK Cold Strip Mill shift fitter Jan Zadorozny, who has been a regular blood donor since 1980. This time in fact he was giving blood for the hundredth time.