Russia restarts sports parades on Red Square

This Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he would revive a tradition lost for decades: the athletes’ parade on Red Square. The propaganda show will take place precisely in March, shortly before the presidential elections, in which he is expected to be re-elected.

The return of athlete parades, a tradition dating back to Soviet times, This was ordered by the government, and on the Kremlin website already calls for those who wish to participate in March 2024.

During the first decades of the Soviet Union, the athletes’ parade took place annually on Moscow’s Red Square, from 1919 in order to promote physical education and sport among the Russian people. These events, attended by hundreds of participants from all Soviet republics, were chaired by Joseph Stalin from 1931.

The last of these milestones took place in 1941, as the Soviet Union celebrated its victory in World War II. After that, This event began to be replaced by workers’ marches and military parades.

From 1931 to 1945, the tradition took place every August 12 in Red Square, with Soviet athletes performing spectacular choreography that, according to the Times, “It has come to rival the Rio Carnival.”

The Russian news agency TASS noted that the idea of ​​​​reviving this tradition was born to the president of the International Boxing Association, Umar Kremlev, who proposed the idea to Vladimir Putin at a sports forum in Perm in October. From this agency they emphasize that the parade in Red Square will feature those who believe in friendship between all athletes, whether professional or amateur.

The parade is believed to be just one of many instructions the Russian leader gave to the Presidential Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sports in October. Among other instructions, government agencies were ordered to send proposals aimed at gradually reducing elite athletes’ dependence on imported equipment. redirect betting profits to develop sport among disabled people and develop the national video game market.

Some observers assure that this sporting desire would be part of a campaign aimed at boosting the morale of the nation, in the midst of economic losses and losses caused by the war, and just at the time of his re-election.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities have not yet decided whether they will allow their athletes to compete as neutrals at the Paris Olympics: the Olympic Committee will not allow Russian or Belarusian athletes to participate in the event, unless they participate “as neutral individual athletes” who have passed the qualification stages, who have not actively supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and who are not under contract to the military or national security agencies of Russia or Belarus.

As an alternative, President Putin declared a “World Friendship Games.” this would be an alternative to the Olympic Games, and it will take place between September 15 and 29. The objective would be to guarantee “the free participation of Russian athletes” in competitions and the development of “new formats of international sports cooperation”, specifies the decree.

Furthermore, Russia will organize the “BRICS Games” in June, from June 12 to 23. A month before the Olympics, the event will take place in Kazan, which will even host the “Games of the Future” in March. In these games there will be 21 disciplines in which physical education and electronic sports are combined.