MOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/. Russia is ready to host the Olympic Games for a third time, and the country will certainly submit bids for the Summer and Winter Games, Russia’s top sports official told TASS on Thursday.
"We will be certainly be submitting our bids in the future and will be ready to organize them [the Olympics] at the highest possible level as we did on the two previous occasions," Mikhail Degtyarev, the Russian Sports Minister and the president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), said in an interview with TASS.
"Sooner or later, we will restore all relations and pave the way for the Olympic Games and, I am sure we will put in bids to host both the Winter and Summer Games," he continued.
In 1980 the former Soviet Union hosted the Summer Olympic Games in the country’s capital of Moscow and in 2014, Russia’s Black Sea southern resort city of Sochi hosted the Winter Olympic Games.
"Our country is one of the most hospitable ones and we have the required infrastructure," Degtyarev continued. "The [2018 FIFA] World Cup still brings up warm memories globally about how friendly Russia was, how people partied and how they rooted for their teams in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Volgograd, Kaliningrad and other cities."
Russia hosted its first and only FIFA World Cup in 2018. The championship took place at 12 stadiums in 11 cities across Russia, namely in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.
"I have just arrived from Lausanne, and I was there at the museum of the International Olympic Committee, where the memory of the Moscow and Sochi Games still persists - postcards, badges, lots of exhibits, and mascots," Degtyarev said.
"These are historical events, and the memory of them remains in the hearts of millions," the Russian sports official pointed out.
"What do the Olympic Games teach us? There must be no boycotts. The Olympic Movement must unite," Degtyarev continued.
"We had the boycott in 1980 and later we announced our own boycott - it was all wrong back then, just as it is today with regard to the discrimination our national athletes face. We must leave it all behind," Russia’s sports and Olympics chief added.
IOC sanctions against Russia, Belarus
On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to prohibit athletes from Russia and Belarus from participating 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 allowing individual athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in international sports tournaments, but only under specific 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.