The fifth BRICS Games were held in Kazan from June 12 to 23, 2024. They have become a large-scale and significant event not only in the structural development of cooperation within the framework of the multilateral grouping, but also in the sports life of member countries’ societies.
A new direction of relations
Sport is a relatively new area of cooperation in BRICS. At multilateral negotiations and in joint declarations, states have repeatedly noted the need to expand humanitarian exchanges. Recently, sport has become an important part of them. The first joint sports event of the group took place in 2016, when India, during its presidency, hosted the BRICS football tournament for boys under the age of 17. Then, in 2017, China hosted competitions in three sports: volleyball, basketball and wushu. In 2018 South Africa continued, hosting football and volleyball tournaments. There were no BRICS Games in Brazil in 2019, only military-style multisport competitions.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought sports exchanges to a halt, but contacts continued. In 2020, the first meeting of ministers of sports of participating countries was organised as a video conference. The parties signed a memorandum of cooperation, agreeing not only to hold regular competitions, but also on joint research, cooperation in the fight against doping and short-term exchanges of athletes and coaches in order to improve their qualifications. All face-to-face competitions were postponed, however, in 2022 the BRICS Games were moved to an online format: China held championships in chess, wushu and breakdancing. In addition, tournaments in a number of traditional national disciplines, including sambo and yoga, were held as a demonstration (outside the medal standings).
After the most severe years of the pandemic, the BRICS Games resumed in 2023 in South Africa, this time live. South Africa has made serious efforts to expand the scope of the tournament. Participation was as usual limit to representatives of the five founding countries (this time athletes below the age of 21, in some sports – below the age of 19), but the number of disciplines has grown significantly, with the list including swimming, badminton, beach volleyball, table tennis and tennis. The Paralympic teams also competed in the last two sports.
A global scale
In 2024, Russia managed to make the BRICS sports competitions truly global. As the chairman of BRICS and the organiser of the Games, our country decided to open up the status to all interested athletes from all over the world. The results of the Games speak to the success of this approach better than any statements: more than 3,000 athletes from 82 countries of Eurasia, Africa and Latin America took part in the competition. This is not only more than the number of BRICS and BRICS Plus countries, but it even exceeds all possible estimates of the number of states officially wishing to join the group. The performance of athletes from unfriendly countries (Great Britain, Japan, Switzerland, EU countries, South Korea) even despite the pressure from their governments is particularly noteworthy.
The programme of the Games also underwent significant changes and expanded to encompass 27 sports, including both Olympic and non-Olympic sports from national and traditional to completely new and modern ones. Athletics, swimming, rowing, equestrian sports, athletic and rhythmic gymnastics coexisted with sambo, acrobatic rock and roll, breakdancing, belt wrestling and other disciplines.
Another important difference from earlier BRICS competitions, which made the Kazan tournament more representative, spectacular and significant, was that adult professional athletes competed at the 2024 Games rather than juniors. Therefore, we can say that for the national teams of Russia and Belarus, the BRICS Games largely replaced the politicised and previously discredited Paris Olympics, and representatives of other states got a unique opportunity to compete in a fair fight with the best Russian and Belarusian teams despite external sanctions.
Sports as they should be
The scale of the 2024 Games, their openness and accessibility directly correspond to the spirit of international sport as such. There were no biased restrictions, discriminatory measures, politicisation in the organisation of the event, in essence all that characterises today’s major sports tournaments coordinated in some way by the West. Also, strict and uniform anti-doping rules were applied.
In the autumn of 2023, speaking at the international forum ‘Russia – a sports power’, Russian President Vladimir Putin assured that “Russia is ready and will cooperate with all those who share the traditional values and principles of sports, those who cherish these values”. This is extremely important in an environment where the International Olympic Committee does not demand of athletes to achieve sporting results, rather demands anti-state and Russophobic political gestures, and the ordinary Olympic Games “can be used as an instrument of political pressure against people who have nothing to do with politics, and as rude, and in fact racist, ethnic discrimination”. Today, in international organisations, “some sports officials have simply appropriated the right to determine who is covered by the Olympic Charter and who is not”, although “such approaches contradict the very nature of sport”. In his greeting to the participants of the BRICS Games at their opening ceremony on June 12, 2024, the Russian leader expressed confidence that this “sports festival will visibly demonstrate the triumph of the universal values of sport, equal opportunities and honest, uncompromising struggle”.
This is exactly how it turned out. Amid double standards, sanctions and prejudices so prevalent in today’s global sports community, the BRICS tournament has become a haven of genuine sporting spirit, healthy competition, cultural diversity, cooperation and fair play without restrictions and politicisation. Russia gifted thousands of people a celebration, which was written and talked about in the world media for a long time.
At the same time, it should be understood that the role of each BRICS participant is important in holding the Games, because the organisation of such a huge tournament had to be carefully thought out and logistics and many other working points have to be agreed upon. Therefore, the success of the competition is not only an achievement of Russia, but also an indicator of productively established international cooperation within BRICS at all its levels.
One would like to hope that the format of the updated Games introduced by our country will be continued by other BRICS states in the next cycles of presidency, and that their sports representation can grow because of new participants. This not only contributes to the development of multilateral humanitarian ties within the organisation, but also provides interested athletes around the world with an honest, open and much-needed alternative to the current sports and political situation in the western part of the world.
Ksenia Muratshina, PhD in History, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”