Russia plans to relaunch the multi-sport Friendship Games subsequent 12 months, 40 years after its first version, Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin has informed President Vladimir Putin. Matytsin stated the occasion can be held after the Paris Olympics, which can run from July 26-Aug. 11 subsequent 12 months.

“We propose to intensify the practice of holding competitions in an open format with the invitation of partner countries,” The Kremlin’s official web site reported Matytsin as saying. “We proceed to fulfil your (Putin’s) instruction to organise the World Friendship Games within the autumn of 2024.

“We consider it necessary to use the resources of both Russian and international public and state organisations to the maximum for the successful holding of the Games, which should be held on a regular basis in the future.” Athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus have been largely frozen out of worldwide competitors by federations within the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation”.

Some Olympic sports activities resembling archery, canoeing, biking, fencing, judo, fashionable pentathlon, desk tennis, taekwondo and triathlon have readmitted athletes from the 2 international locations however athletics has not. The International Olympic Committee has really useful that Russian and Belarusian athletes be allowed to return to worldwide competitors as neutrals although it has but to take a remaining choice on their participation on the Paris Games.

FRIENDLY TIES Last 12 months, Russia held a contest referred to as the Solidarity Games with the intention of “strengthening of international friendly ties between states”.

The Friendship Games have been first organised in 1984 within the Soviet Union and eight different socialist states which boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Around 50 international locations took half with the Soviets dominating with 126 golds adopted by East Germany with 50.

In 1986, Ted Turner, the billionaire founding father of cable information channel CNN, created the Goodwill Games in response to the political troubles surrounding the Olympics of the Eighties. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 led the United States and different Western international locations to boycott the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow.

Four years later, the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc international locations, besides Romania, boycotted the Los Angeles Games. The first version of the Goodwill Games was staged in Moscow in 1986 and the final in Brisbane in 2001. The occasion was ultimately cancelled because of poor tv rankings.

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