Putin suspends World Friendship Games
Russian President Vladimir Putin has postponed the World Friendship Games – an international sporting event that was scheduled to take place in the country in the summer of 2025 or 2026.
On Monday, the president’s office published a decree to “postpone the holding of the World Friendship Games international competition until further notice by the Russian president.”
According to the document, the decision was made to “protect athletes’ and sporting organizations’ rights to free access to international sporting activities.”
Plans to hold the games, which would have included 35 disciplines, were announced in April. The competition had initially been scheduled for September of this year in Moscow and the city of Ekaterinburg. However, in late August, the event was put off until the summer of 2025 or 2026.
Following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, Russian and Belarusian athletes were stripped of their right to compete in the Olympic Games and other international sporting events under their countries’ flags. A little over a dozen Russians were eventually allowed to take part in this year’s Paris Olympics as ‘individual neutral athletes’.
When the Freiendship Games event was first announced earlier this year, the International Olympic Committee voiced strong opposition to the initiative, dismissing it as a “cynical attempt by the Russian Federation to politicize sport.”
Speaking in early April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the international body of “trampling on” the principles enshrined in the Olympic Charter to please the “hegemons.” He went on to say that the World Friendship Games would reflect the charter’s core values.
