BRICS Games to be combined with Sabantuy: Kazan begins to welcome team delegations from ‘greater part’ of the world

Emirates back in Kazan

Initially, the number of heads of delegations of the teams that are performing at the BRICS Games was planned to consist of ten countries, but on Tuesday afternoon exactly half arrived at the Volga Region University of Sports, and the sixth, from the Congo, was still on the way. Quantitatively, the most impressive was the delegation of the United Arab Emirates, which was headed by the Executive Director of the Sports Development Department of the Sports Authority, Sheikh Suhail Bin Butti Al Maktoum, and which included two other people.

The explanation for this should be sought in the fact that the Emirates is a country that has joined the BRICS states this year. Last year, they joined the Organisation for the Development of Hockey in Islamic countries, ADIHIC, created in Kazan, after which the local national team won the ice hockey tournament and at the end of this week starts in the World Hockey Championship (Division B, group B). Many Russian hockey players play in the Emirates, including Maxim Akhmetzyanov, Ayrat Badygiev, Pavel Popkov, and Artur Zainutdinov received local citizenship and plays for the local national team, the only one in the Emirates that is in the world's top 30.

There are many Russian speakers in the local judo team, which is coached by the native of the USSR. Therefore, the interest in cooperation is obvious, and the Emirates constantly demonstrate this, in particular, Sheikh Suhail Bin Butti Al Maktoum came to Kazan last year as a participant in the forum “Kazan is the sports capital of the Islamic world”.

When Tatarstan Sports Minister Vladimir Leonov was asked about the possibility of sports stars participating in the BRICS Games, he evaded the answer, which is logical, since even on the sidelines, participants in future competitions discuss more organisational issues.

“Top athletes from Asia and America, who are ready to take part in the BRICS Games, express their wishes to stay here in Kazan for pre-Olympic training, since one month remains before the Games in Paris, and they will not have to return home, then go through the acclimatisation process again. There are enough sports facilities in Kazan, the place of residence and the experience of receiving guests at a high level — is there anything wrong with competing and continuing to prepare for the Olympics?" explained the interlocutor of Realnoe Vremya.

“We look up to Russia in many ways”

If Asians, the continent that is represented by the UAE, and Americans have such plans, then it is possible that the representative of Venezuela, the country that announced the possibility of joining BRICS, thought about it, and the Deputy Minister of Sports and Youth of the South American country Pablo Alfonso Yústiz Araujo highly appreciated the participation of Russian athletes in last year's Bolivarian Games ALBA, which were hosted by his country and where Russians competed. “We are planning to join the BRICS, which will allow us to expand our economic and political potentials. We look up to Russia in many ways. Our goal is to develop relations between our countries, Russia and Venezuela. And sport is a tool to strengthen friendship between our countries.”

The representative of Venezuela noted that at the BRICS Games his country's sports delegation is participating in 9 disciplines, with a team of 40-45 athletes.

In addition to these countries, representatives of Afghanistan, Bahrain and Republika Srpska (not to be confused with Serbia) took part in the meeting, as well as almost thirty countries that observed and will continue to monitor the progress of the working trip online. Since it did not end with a conversation within the walls of the Volga Region University, its programme will include trips to sports facilities, during which representatives of the host country will talk about them and about the services that participants of the BRICS Games will receive.

Two and a half thousand athletes are expected to participate at the peak

By the way, including to carry out an introductory mission, a foreign delegation was brought to the Volga Region University a quarter of an hour earlier than the planned event, in order to be able to slowly talk about the Volga Region Sports University, celebrating its 50th anniversary this autumn. By the way, the university itself looked extinct, since most of the students were sent to online training, but the teaching staff of the university was on the ground, and during an impromptu press conference Yuri Boltikov, Igor Konovalov, Gabdyzhalil Suleymanov, whose students are actively preparing for the BRICS Games, passed along the corridor. Even Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences Gabdyzhalil Suleymanov, who combines koresh wrestling with belt wrestling, did not leave plans to start at the BRICS Games.

Koresh will be featured in the sports programme of the BRICS Games, whose competitive program ranges from 25 to 29 sports. Let us remind that there were 27 sports at the Universiade in Kazan, including koresh, which will now be fixed in the minds of the guests also as a kind of cultural heritage of the Tatar people, as well as Sabantuy. The initial plans to hold the closing ceremony of the BRICS Games in Menger, as the president of the international Koresh Federation, Dzhaudat Minnakhmetov, told our publication in December last year, are taking shape. “The closing of the BRICS Games is planned to be held against the “background of the village and the village Maidan” on the Tatar national holiday Sabantuy. And to hold it as the best Sabantuy in history, with the maximum saturation of national colour, with the strongest wrestlers on the carpet who are in Russia and will come from the participating countries of the BRICS Games," Dzhaudat Midhatovich told Realnoe Vremya.

Vladimir Leonov, as a fact, stated that “on June 23, all sports ministers of the BRICS Games participating countries will be invited to participate in Sabantuy, in which all athletes of the national teams can take part, so that, in addition to the sports business programme for ministers, they can plunge into our Russian, Tatarstan flavor.” If we talk about the number of participants, then at its peak it will reach 2.6 thousand people, and in general 4-4.5 thousand athletes, since one way or another they will replace each other, with the beginning of some competitions others finish.