2024 BRICS Games

The games officially took place from 12 June to 23 June 2024 (from 11 June to 25 June including related events).[2]

More than 60 countries were invited to participate.[3] As of 1 June 2024, representatives from 97 countries confirmed their participation; at the opening ceremony on 12 June, participants from 89 countries were announced. According to the online publication Mediazona, the leaked lists of accommodation of athletes in hotels and dormitories on the campus of the Kazan (Volga region) Federal University indicate that representatives of 37 foreign states were registered, including from partially recognized states and occupied regions, as well as foreign students studying at Russian universities. The largest delegations were from Russia, Brazil and China. It was noted that most countries sent weaker teams, with the exception of Russia, Belarus, and Brazil.[4][5]

The BRICS Games were used by Russian athletes as an alternative to participation in the 2024 Summer Olympics, where the country is not allowed to attend by decision of the International Olympic Committee (with the exception of a small number of individual athletes in non-team disciplines) due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and various doping in Russia controversies. The 2024 BRICS games were several times larger than all previous BRICS games – 387 sets of medals were awarded in 27 sports, while the next-largest BRICS games were the 2023 edition in South Africa where only five sports were contested.

A total of 1,276 medals were awarded to the 2,970 participants (0.43 medal per participant) including 509 medals to the 641 participants from the Russian delegation (0.79 medal per participant). This compares to the 1,080 medals awarded to the 11,420 participants in the Tokyo 2020 (0.09 medal per participant).

1.8 billion rubles were allocated for the competitions and 5 billion rubles were allocated to prepare the infrastructure. 358.4 thousand rubles were allocated in prize money for gold medal-winners, 179.2 thousand rubles for silver, and 107.5 thousand rubles for bronze medallists. The games' competitions involve 17 sports facilities and provide 95 thousand tickets for spectators.

The opening ceremony was held on 12 June 2024 in the concert hall of the international exhibition complex Kazan Expo with the participation of the Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation M. Degtyarev and the rais of the Republic of Tatarstan R. Minnikhanov in the presence of athletes and official guests without ordinary spectators. Instead of the closing ceremony on June 23, 2024, participation of athletes and guests participate in the Sabantuy festival on the closing of the Games.

The mascot of the games is the orange badger Brixic. The logo of the games is a rectangle with the text BRICS (letters in blue, red, orange, green and yellow) at the top, the words GAMES (in red) and a stylized tulip with the Kazan Syuyumbike tower (in green) in the middle and the numbers 2024 (in red) with the text "RUSSIA•KAZAN" (in black) below. The games are presented by ambassadors led by figure skater Alina Zagitova, footballrt Gökdeniz Karadeniz, saber fencer Sofia Velikaya, and gymnast Yana Batyrshina.

The main broadcasters of the games are the television and radio companies Match TV and TNV.[5]

There were 27 sports contested at the 2024 BRICS Games.[7]

The medal tally is maintained by the BRICS Games website.[8] There are some inconsistencies within the website itself, e.g. Japan is credited with a medal but no participants, while Italy is credited with a medal in the medals table but neither medals nor participants in the participants table.

  *   Host nation (Russia)

• University International Sports Festival – in Yekaterinburg, Russia from 19 August 2023 to 31 August 2023.
• Games of the Future – in Kazan, Russia from 21 February to 3 March 2024.
• 2024 World Friendship Games – in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, Russia from 15 to 29 September 2024.

• Official website