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Russia, China to be represented each by some 112 athletes at 2025 Winter Youth Games

The 2025 Winter Youth Games are scheduled to run between January 8 and 14 and the tournament’s program includes nine Olympic competitions

MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. Some 112 athletes from each national team will participate in the 2025 Russian-Chinese Winter Youth Games that will be hosted by Russia’s Far Eastern city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk next month, Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev said on Wednesday.

The 2025 Winter Youth Games are scheduled to run between January 8 and 14 and the tournament’s program includes nine Olympic competitions.

"The Russian delegation is made up of 176 people, including 112 athletes, 64 coaches and accompanying experts," Degtyarev told journalists. "Russia and China will have an equal representation at the tournament."

"The main aim [of the tournament] is to develop long-standing sports traditions between Russia and China, strengthen friendship," he said.

"But the victories of our athletes, which we are waiting for, are the most important," he noted.

Degtyarev, who also serves as the resident of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), also said he believed that the year of 2025 would be positive for the Russian sports.

"I would like to state with all my confidence that the year of 2025 will be success as well as positive for the Russian sports," Degtyarev said. "Being in the capacity of the sports minister and the president of the [Russian] Olympic Committee, I will do my best to achieve the set goals."

IOC sanctions against Russia, Belarus

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.

Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.

In late March, 2023, the IOC recommended to permit individual athletes from Russia and Belarus to take part in international sports tournaments, but only under certain conditions. Specifically, athletes from the two countries should not be "actively supporting" Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and must compete under a neutral status. Russia and Belarus were also banned from participating in international team events.

On October 12, 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) until further notice after the Russian organization included the Olympic councils of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions as its members.

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