Millions of Russian athletes took part in domestic sports events last year, says minister
MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/. Over two million Russian athletes as well as sports delegations representing 30 countries participated in various competitions across Russia last year, Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin told TASS on Monday.
"Last year, over two million Russian athletes participated in sports tournaments across the country and this figure also includes representatives of sports delegations from 30 countries," Matytsin said in an interview with TASS.
"For the first time in 30 years we have revived the format of the all-Russia Spartakiad tournaments, which served to boost the level of domestic competitions and to evaluate the talent pool in the country," the minister continued.
"International diplomacy during this period of time served as an important tool for us as we did not seal ourselves off from cooperation with our foreign colleagues, but stepped up our work in this direction, focusing our attention on member states of the SCO [the Shanghai Cooperation Organization], BRICS [ ] and the CIS [the Commonwealth of Independent States]," Matytsin noted.
"The participation of our athletes in foreign sports tournaments continued as well as our athletes took part in more than 800 competitions in various countries recording outstanding results," the minister stated.
Matytsin also said that maintaining the currently top level of Russian athletes’ physical abilities is a prime task for the Russian Sports Ministry, because it is also necessary for them to stay alert ahead of the qualifying tournaments for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
"All conditions have been provided in Russia to organize training camps for summer games," he said
"Our actual task is to keep intact rosters of national teams and to keep maintaining the physical shape of our athletes in order for them to immediately join [international sports] competitions, including qualifying tournaments of the 2024 Olympics in Paris," Matytsin noted.
At its session on January 25, the IOC Executive Board put forward a proposal to permit individual athletes from Russia and Belarus to take part in international sports tournaments, but only under certain conditions. Athletes from the countries in question should not be "actively supporting" Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and must compete under a neutral status.
On January 26, 2023, Ukraine’s Youth and Sports Minister Vadim Guttsait announced on his Facebook (outlawed in Russia, owned by Meta Platforms, Inc. which is recognized as extremist in Russia) page that the Ukrainian NOC (the National Olympic Committee) was considering boycotting the 2024 Summer Olympics in France if the ban on the participation of athletes from Russia and Belarus in international sports tournaments was lifted.
On February 2, the sports ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland urged the IOC and International Federations (IFs) to ban athletes representing Russia and Belarus from taking part in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
On February 9, Reuters news agency quoted IOC President Thomas Bach as saying in a statement that a possible boycott of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris by the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee (NOC) would be in violation of the Olympic Charter.
IOC’s ban on Russia’s international participation
On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.
Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.
Photo by Egor Aleev/TASS
