Analysis
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Ostracized after its invasion of Ukraine, the country hastily organizes its own competitions trying to rally non-aligned nations. A way for the Russian president to try to preserve the central role of sport for his regime, even though this model does not seem to be sustainable.
Thirty-nine gold medals, 40 silver and 27 bronze: with such a raid, Russian para-athletes ended the 2022 Paralympic Games at the top of the medal rankings in March. With one detail: there was no question of the very official Beijing Olympics, but of the Games of Khanty-Mansiysk, a town of 100,000 inhabitants, located in the autonomous district of Yugra, in central Russia.
Scheduled over three days, less than a week after the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games in China (March 4-13), the event was hastily imagined by the Russian government and announced on March 4, the day after the Exclusion of Russians and Belarusians by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), one of the consequences of the invasion of Ukraine launched at the end of February. “The region has all the necessary sports and hospitality infrastructure, in line with national standards. All sports facilities are located close to each other and there should be no logistical problems. The climate is also favorable at this time of year. justified on March 5 to the Russian agency Tass, Dmitry Chernyshenko, the vice-president of the government of the Russian Federation.
Collision with the international sports calendar
The same Chernyshenko had instructed the Russian ministries of Sp…