Delegates from Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Slovenia, France, Mongolia and Russia take part in the Games.
The parliamentary teams will compete in six sports: mini-football, table tennis, tennis, billiards, chess and badminton. The winning team will get the challenge cup.
“The central
theme of the International
Parliamentary Games is
friendship. Parliamentary diplomacy, people-to-people diplomacy are those
things lacking in world politics. Members of parliaments have played for centuries a bridging role between states, governments and peoples. At a time
when some Western politicians are building walls between states and conducting
trade wars, we, on the contrary, open doors for representatives of all
countries to engage in frank dialogue,” said Mikhail Degtiarev
Mikhail Vladimiroviсh
, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Physical Culture, Sport and Youth Affairs. He said that now the possibility of inclusion of ice hockey in the programme of the following 10th International
Parliamentary Games.
Deputy Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs Anatolii Karpov
Anatolii Evgenyeviсh
said that the Games are developing, for example, chess is included in the competition this year. “We are developing our contacts in different directions,” said the member of the State Duma. “We fly with the State Duma [chess] team and meet the teams of parliaments of other countries.” Anatolii Karpov, who is the world chess champion himself, called on the parliaments of other countries to create teams to expand their social circle. In his opinion, this is part of the so-called “public diplomacy”.
“It is necessary to participate more actively. Healthy contacts between parliamentarians of various levels are growing from public diplomacy,” he said and noted that the Interparliamentary Games are a positive example, parliamentarians of different levels are represented there.
First Deputy Chairperson of the Committee on International Affairs, Olympic speed skating champion Svetlana Zhurova
Svetlana Sergeevna
reminded that the main principle of sport and Olympic values is friendship and noted that “those who come to participate in our Interparliamentary Games always leave with good mood, with new emotions, and with good results, new impressions are being taken back to their country”.
She stressed that parliamentarians should be an example for their voters, and going in for sports they set a very good example, because the sport is an integral and important part of the quality life of citizens. And to improve the quality of life of people the Russian parliamentarians are faced with the task of increasing the number of citizens involved in sports.
Svetlana Zhurova also noted that reports on the 9th International Parliamentary Games will be sent to parliaments around the world.
“This is not only a sports ground but also a meeting room, for getting to know each other and for communication, for friendship. I am sure that a lot of parliamentarians will want to join us next year,” she said.
A member of the Committee on Physical Culture, Sport and Youth Affairs Rima Batalova
Rima Akberdinovna
, who is the Paralympic champion, vice-president of the Russian Paralympic Committee, invited fellow parliamentarians from other countries to work together on the problems that exist in the Paralympic movement.
Sergei Krivonosov
Sergey Vladimirovich
, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Physical Culture, Sport and Youth Affairs, noted that “the time that we will spend together will allow us to understand each other even better and build quality relationships”.
Besides participating in sports competitions, delegates will hold meetings with students of leading Moscow universities: Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University. They will also visit the Moscow Planetarium and take part in a sightseeing tour by the Moscow cable car.
The 9th International Parliamentary Games will culminate in a football match between the national teams of Russian and world parliamentarians of Russia. The match will take place at of one of the oldest stadiums in Moscow – Krasnaya Presnya.
The Russian
parliamentary football team will, as usual, be headed by the First Deputy
Chairman of the State Duma Aleksandr Zhukov
Alexander Dmitrievich
.
