Russia starts friendly games after a 40-year break

(Reuters) – Russia plans to restart the multi-sport Friendly Games next year, 40 years after their first competition, Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin told President Vladimir Putin.

Matytsin said the event will take place after the Paris Olympics, which will run from July 26 to August. 11 next year.

“We propose to intensify the practice of organizing competitions in an open format at the invitation of partner countries,” the Kremlin’s official website said, according to Matytsin.

“We will continue to implement your (Putin’s) instruction to organize the World Friendship Games in the fall of 2024.

“We consider it necessary to use as much as possible the resources of both Russian and international public and state organizations in terms of the successful organization of the Games, which should be organized regularly in the future.”

Federations have largely suspended athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus from international competition since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation.”

Some Olympic sports, such as archery, canoeing, cycling, fencing, judo, modern pentathlon, table tennis, taekwondo and triathlon, have readmitted athletes from both countries, but athletics has not.

The International Olympic Committee has recommended that Russian and Belarusian athletes be allowed to return to international competition as neutrals, although it has yet to make a final decision on their participation in the Paris Games.

Last year, Russia organized the Solidarity Games competition, which aims to “strengthen international friendships between states”.

Friendly matches were first organized in 1984 in the Soviet Union and eight other socialist nations that boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

About 50 countries participated, with the Soviet Union dominating with 126 golds and East Germany with 50 golds.

In 1986, Ted Turner, the billionaire founder of the cable news channel CNN, created the Goodwill Games in response to the political issues surrounding the 1980s Olympics.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 led the United States and other Western countries to boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

Four years later, the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries, with the exception of Romania, boycotted the Los Angeles Games.

The first Goodwill Games competition was held in Moscow in 1986 and the last in Brisbane in 2001. The event was eventually canceled due to poor TV ratings.

(Reporting by Manasi Pathak in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)

Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.