The “We Are Together. Sports” para sports competition finished earlier this week in Khanty-Mansiisk, Russia. The event was held as a replacement competition for Russian and Belarusian athletes barred from participating in the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympic Games.
Russia and Belarus were originally set to compete at the Winter Paralympics following the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) initially ruled they would compete as neutral athletes without their national flags, anthems, or symbols.
However, following a dramatic series of events in which athletes and teams threatened to boycott their matches against Russian and Belarusian opponents, the IPC was forced to overturn their original decision and decline the entries of Russia and Belarus.
IPC President Andrew Parsons told the athletes of both nations, “we are very sorry you are affected by the decisions your governments took last week in breaching the Olympic Truce. You are victims of your governments’ actions.”
In lieu of participation at the Winter Paralympics, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko made plans for his country to organize an alternative para sport event for Russia and Belarusian athletes. Ultimately, the event was attended by athletes from Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.
The event was organized in Khanty-Mansiisk and ran from March 18-21. It featured the same sports as the Winter Paralympics, with Russian state news agency TASS reporting Russia won the medal table, winning 39 gold medals at the event.
Pavel Rozhkov, Acting President of the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC), told TASS, “our Chinese partners were preparing for seven years, while it took Yugra only seven days. We have inspected all sports facilities and they are in compliance with the international up-to-date standards.”
Rozhkov added the event may not be a one-off either, alluding to the possibility of organizing similar events in the future. He told TASS, “we are pondering the organization of the Games on a regular basis. A matter of their frequency would be decided later.”
“We plan [on] organizing such Games for the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) member states. Participation invitations to other countries, including from Europe, are also possible.”
Rozhkov concluded, “we have grand opportunities for hosting such tournaments and they include the infrastructure, the refereeing staff, the organization and, most importantly, our desire to host them.”
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Beyond the final result, Roland Garros left the feeling that the Italian and the Spaniard will shape the great duel that came to help us through the duel for the end of the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era.
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
She is the third in her sport and the seventh athlete to achieve it in the same edition; in Santiago 2023 she was the first athlete with disabilities to compete at the Pan American level and won a medal.
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Argentinian Rodrigo Isgró received a five-game suspension for an indiscipline in the circuit’s decisive clash that would exclude him until the final or the bronze match; the Federation will seek to make the appeal successful.
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
The Kenyan received the maximum sanction for irregularities in his biological passport and the Court considered that he was part of a system of “deliberate and sophisticated doping” to improve his performance. He will lose his record and the bronze medal at the Doha World Cup.
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
The American, a seven-time Olympic champion, referred to the case of the 23 positive controls before the Tokyo Games that were announced a few weeks ago and shook the swimming world. “I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low,” he said.
