Plenary session of the Russia – Country of Sports International Forum

The forum, Russia's largest venue for discussing key issues and prospects for physical fitness and sports, was established by Presidential Executive Order on July 27, 2009. In 2024, Ufa hosts the forum on October 17-19.

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Remarks by the President

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Friends,

I am delighted to welcome the participants and guests, including our international colleagues and partners, of the Russia - Country of Sports International Forum.

We have come together in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, which is a one-of-a-kind region of our multi-ethnic Fatherland.

This year marks the 450^th anniversary of Ufa. My best wishes to the residents of the city and the rest of the republic on the occasion of this remarkable date. I would also like to thank you for the enormous contribution to the development of our vast country, including its military, labour, scientific, and sporting achievements.

I am confident that the forum participants will appreciate famous Bashkortostan's hospitality and will enjoy learning about the history, unique cultural heritage, and sports traditions, as well as modern achievements of this remarkable ancient region.

Bashkortostan was rightly picked as a host for the Sports: A Comprehensive Look into the Future forum, a theme that conveys a sense of urgency.

Indeed, the prospects and the future of the global sports need to be discussed in an in-depth and thorough manner. There is need for a joint quest in order to find answers to the question of how to overcome the daunting challenges of our time, to prevent the international sports community from splitting, and to make sports free from crude politicisation, double standards, distorted rules, and degrading discrimination, including on the grounds of nationality and ethnicity.

Clearly, there are attempts to turn the international sports and the Olympic movement into a geopolitical playground, rather than an arena for fair competition, a place for promoting a destructive neo-liberal agenda, unnatural norms, pseudo-freedoms, as well as rejecting traditional values that have been held by the vast majority of countries and peoples for centuries, and even millennia.

I am certain that the global majority, just like Russia, chooses a different path to follow that is based on equality, openness, and mutual respect in all areas of cooperation, including the economy, culture, science, education, healthcare, trade, politics, and, of course, sports.

Drawing on our extensive experience of hosting large-scale sporting events, including the Winter Olympics in Sochi and the FIFA World Cup, we are promoting new cooperation formats based on the true ideals and principles of sports such as solidarity, fairness, the celebration of human spirit, strength, intellect, as well as generosity of spirit and respect for the dignity of our competitors, strong competitors. We have respect for all our competitors.

To be continued.

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