Most Russian athletes will most likely not be able to take part in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. The crisis of the Olympic movement and the need to create alternative competitions were announced by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, the President of the All-Russian Federation of Rhythmic Gymnastics (VFCG) Irina Viner and many others. The Friendship Games are planned to be held in 2024. When and where these competitions will be held, whether they will be able to replace the Olympics - in the NEWS.ru material.

Putin proposed to create a new format
For the first time, the format of the competition, in which all Russian athletes will participate, was seriously discussed in June at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2023 (SPIEF). As part of the Sovereignty in Sports session, Vladimir Putin announced the decision to hold the Friendship Games in 2024.

Then it was noted that a program of competitions with the participation of the strongest athletes in the world was being worked out. It was planned to hold the event every four years for summer and winter sports. The organizer was the Ministry of Sports of Russia.

Two months later, in August 2023, during a meeting with members of the Russian government, Putin suggested that Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko think about payments for athletes comparable to those for the Olympic Games.

“Think, please, consult with the Prime Minister, this is not such a lot of money, but for elite athletes this is still such a serious support,” Putin said, addressing Chernyshenko.

Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Chernyshenko
Photo: kremlin.ru
Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Chernyshenko
“Olympic Movement is Degrading”
At the same meeting with the government, Putin announced the creation of parallel structures in the field of international sports. He stressed that due to the "politicization of international sports structures" there is a "certain degradation".

Irina Viner also stated the same. According to her, the primary task for Russian athletes now is to prepare for the Friendship Games, a new competition that is scheduled to be held in September 2024 in Moscow and Yekaterinburg.

“We should move away from the format of the Olympic Games and create our own alternative competitions due to the fact that the Olympics do not correspond to the idea of ​​Pierre de Coubertin “Faster, Higher, Stronger”, and regardless of politics, as well as participation in the Olympics of a new human formation called ‘transgender’,” said the head of the WFHG Match TV.

She added that the performances of Russians without a flag and an anthem are unacceptable.

“I believe that the Olympic Games have become obsolete. We will develop our own in the fields of BRICS and SCO. Friendship Games will be held next year. The same money will be paid for medals. Our Olympic Games, 137 countries have declared, an alternative appears, ”Viner emphasized.

Yekaterinburg Arena
Photo: Vyacheslav Bukharov/CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimrdia
Yekaterinburg Arena
What sports will be represented at the Friendship Games
The head of the organizing committee of the Friendship Games, Alexei Sorokin, does not believe that these competitions can replace the Olympics. According to him, world sport lives in new realities that require new formats.

“We feel a request for competitions, where there is no place for discrimination and slogans. There was an association of friendship and Friendship Games. This is not an alternative to international competitions, this is a powerful addition with a significant prize pool. We do not plan to build a new infrastructure, we will be based on excellent facilities that already exist in the country,” Sorokin told TASS.

At these competitions, athletes will compete in 27 sports, including: basketball, boxing, athletics, swimming, gymnastics, beach soccer, sports programming and even acrobatic rock and roll. The Friendship Games will require more than 8 billion rubles. This was reported in the State Duma Committee on Physical Culture and Sports.

“5 thousand athletes are expected. The opening and closing ceremonies will be held in Moscow, part of the program in Yekaterinburg,” the committee said .

Will athletes from Ukraine be invited to the Friendship Games?
Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin said that Ukrainian athletes would be expected in Russia at the Friendship Games . “We will ensure the safety of their stay on the territory of Russia, as well as equal competitive rights to participate in the Friendship Games,” Matytsin added .

Whether one of the Ukrainian athletes will come to competitions in Moscow and Yekaterinburg is currently unknown. The head of the organizing committee Alexei Sorokin did not give NEWS.ru an answer to this question.

Oleg Matytsin
Photo: Sergey Lantyukhov / NEWS.ru
Oleg Matytsin
The head of the International Olympic Committee ( IOC ), Thomas Bach, reacted negatively to the idea of ​​organizing the 2024 Friendship Games. He said that the Russian government was going to hold politicized competitions.

“The Russian government accuses us of not maintaining political neutrality. At the same time, this same government is trying to organize a completely politicized sporting event,” Bach said at the IOC session.

Have the Friendship Games been held before?
For the first and only time, competitions with this name were held in 1984 in the countries of the socialist camp: the USSR, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Cuba, North Korea, Mongolia, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Each of these states boycotted the Los Angeles Olympics, which ended two weeks before the start of the Friendship Games.

As now, the official position then was: "The Friendship Games are not an alternative to the Olympic Games." Competitions were held in all Olympic sports, except for football, as well as in three non-Olympic sports - sambo, table tennis and tennis.

Athletes from more than 50 countries participated in the Druzhba-84 competitions. The victory was won by the USSR national team, having won 126 gold medals.

What games were an alternative to the Olympics
The most famous competition that could replace the Olympics is the Goodwill Games. The idea was that the best athletes in the world could continue to compete against each other in the face of a boycott of the Olympic Games by major sports powers. Goodwill Games appeared thanks to the American billionaire Ted Turner. The motto of the competition was: “From friendship in sports to peace on Earth!”

The first Games were held in Moscow from 5 to 20 July 1986. They were attended by about 3,000 athletes from 79 countries who competed in 18 sports. It was the first competition in 10 years where the best athletes of the USSR and the USA met each other. Six world records were broken during the competition. In particular, world champion and record holder Sergei Bubka set a new world record in pole vault (601 cm).

The boycotts of the Olympic Games were never repeated, but the Goodwill Games became an independent brand and were then held five more times: in 1990 in Seattle, in 1994 in St. Petersburg, in 1998 in New York, in 2000 in Lake Placid (winter) and in 2001 in Brisbane.

Latvia vs Germany Live Free

Latvia vs Germany Live Free

Awww n