Vladimir Putin gives up organizing his Friendship Games supposed to compete with the Olympics – Libération

The Russian head of state, who has always relied on sport to establish his policy internationally and in the country, announced it on Monday December 2. The event was to be held in September in Moscow and Yekaterinburg. It is officially postponed “until a special decision.”

A hell of a snub. Vladimir Putin formalized this Monday, December 2 by decree his renunciation of organizing his “World Friendship Games”, supposed to compete with the traditional Olympic Games. The event, announced by the Kremlin in March, was to represent 35 disciplines, mixing the classic (swimming, athletics, archery, athletics) with the original (acrobatic rock’n’roll, padel, MMA, chess) .

As for Paris 2024, these Games had their own mascot in the shape of a tiger and were managed by a real organizing committee, chaired by Alexeï Sorokine, already in charge of holding the Football World Cup in 2018. Scheduled at Originally from September 15 to 29 in Moscow and Ekaterinburg, in the Urals, right after the end of the Paralympic Games in Paris, it should have brought together 5 500 people with “cash prizes comprising a total of 4.6 billion rubles”according to the TASS news agency.

This was before the announcement of a first postponement, on July 30. The International Friendship Association, responsible for its organization, then moved forward “the lack of recovery time for high-level athletes participating in major international competitions during the summer of 2024”to justify the last minute cancellation. Without any other date being mentioned.

No justification given

This time, no other justification was put forward, except that“in order to defend the rights of athletes and sports organizations to free access to international sporting activities”Vladimir Putin ordered to “postpone until a special decision” the holding of this international sporting event, according to the decree published Monday on the official website of legal documents of the Russian government.

For Vladimir Putin, failure is more painful than it seems. Since his accession to power, sport has always constituted a central issue for him in his political approach. It is one of the main vectors of Russian “soft power” internationally, but also an instrument of population control via its athletes, who have become over the course of its mandates real propaganda tools intended to influence public opinion.

However, relations between Moscow and world sporting bodies have been at their lowest point for several years, undermined by a multitude of conflicts, between state doping scandal and geopolitical tensions. Banned from world sport by the IOC shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine, Russia was subsequently excluded as a nation from the Games in Paris and was represented by only a small team of 15 athletes, competing under the banner neutral, after a very strict selection.

Multiple parallel competitions

A heresy for the Kremlin, which intends to continue to exist in sport at all costs. The Russian president therefore ordered a year ago to organize these Games which he praised as an alternative to the Olympic Games. There was even supposed to be a winter version, planned for Sochi in 2026. In the process, the IOC asked the sporting world and the governments invited by Moscow “to reject any participation and support” to this event.

The Lausanne-based body does not criticize the Russians for creating multi-sport competitions outside its aegis – since several already exist, including the Commonwealth Games or the Francophonie Games -, but for doing so via “a very sustained diplomatic offensive”through direct contact with “governments around the world”. The IOC accuses Russia of “politicize” sport and saw in the potential organization of the Friendship Games “a cynical attempt” to exploit athletes “for political propaganda purposes”in violation of the Olympic Charter.

The postponement is intriguing, especially since Moscow has already initiated several parallel Olympics. The first version was already called the “Friendship Games” and was organized in 1984 by the Soviet Union and eight other countries which had boycotted the Los Angeles Olympic Games against the backdrop of the Cold War. More recently, Moscow planned in March 2022 – less than a month after the end of the Beijing winter Olympics – the Olympics in Khanty-Mansiysk, a town of 100,000 inhabitants located in the autonomous district of Yugra, in central Russia. They took place over three days and at the time brought together para-athletes from several “friendly” countries of Russia – Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan – in six disciplines (cross-country skiing , biathlon, curling, snowboarding, alpine skiing, sledge hockey).

An initiative to which two other international events were added: the Games of the Future (the “Phygital games”, a contraction of “physics” and “digital”) organized in Kazan from February 21 to March 3, mixing traditional and e-disciplines. sport, and the “BRICS Games” scheduled in the same city from June 12 to 23, and which hosted “athletes from more than 50 countries”according to Russian authorities.