August 11, 2024

Fine Then, We'll Host Our Own Olympics


Fine Then, We'll Host Our Own Olympics
The easiest gold ever. RIA Novosti

With the official Russian team precluded from the 2024 Paris Olympics (thanks to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine), Russia instead put its efforts towards this year's BRICs Games in June. With eyebrow-raising results.

The BRICs Games are an annual sporting meet with a similar vibe to the Olympics, but spotlight instead developing nations (like the BRICs), or those that we don't typically see at the world games, ranging from the isolated (North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba) to the Russia-allied (Belarus) to the internationally unrecognized (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Republic of Srpska). Russia chairs the games and hosted them in Kazan this year.

Russia, Brazil, and China sent the largest athletic delegations.

Events ranged from the expected, like swimming, fencing, gymnastics, and track, to the local, like Eurasian folk wrestling and Chinese martial arts, and the quasi-athletic, like chess. Not all events were well represented, resulting in Gogol-esque moments like the above photo, where a single artistic swimming competitor took home gold against no rivals.

Indeed, of the 2,970 participants, 1,276 medals were awarded: a rate five times higher than at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Most notably, nearly 80% of Russian participants took home a medal.

Surely the viewership of the BRICs games would be higher if they included tank ballet.

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