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On the sidelines of the International Forum Russia – Country of Sports, Vladimir Putin met with heads of international sports organisations. The President noted that in the coming years, Russia will host a great number of international sports events – in particular, several matches of the UEFA European Football Championship and world championships for luge, swimming, volleyball, ice hockey and aquatic sports. The President wished the meeting participants successful work.

In addition, Vladimir Putin had a brief conversation with the winners of the 30^th Summer Universiade held in Naples and attended the presentation of MATCH. Strana TV channel.

Over 8,000 athletes from 111 countries took part in the 2019 Summer Universiade. The Russian student team, which represented over 100 national universities, shared first place with the Japanese team. The Russian and Chinese teams came second for the number of gold medals won. The Russian athletes brought home 82 medals: 22 gold, 24 silver and 36 bronze.

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Speech at the meeting with heads of international sports organisations

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, friends,

Let me sincerely welcome you in Russia once again. This time we are meeting in Nizhny Novgorod. This is an ancient, very beautiful Russian city. I hope you will like it here.

You know and I have just spoken at the plenary session of the forum about Russia’s attitude to sports and our striving to reach new heights in sports that we consider very important.

Today, at the prompting of my colleagues, we reviewed our achievements and plans. Three group-stage matches and a quarterfinal of the UEFA European Football Championship will take place in St Petersburg next year.

We are getting ready to hold the world championships for luge in 2020, swimming and volleyball in 2022, ice hockey in 2023, and aquatic sports in 2025. We will also host a parachuting championship and a number of other events. So we have a large, serious agenda.

I would like to use this opportunity to thank our colleagues from abroad once again. We consider all of you – and ourselves – to be one big sports family that aims to develop mass and elite sport, primarily in the interests of people.

Sport serves the noble purpose of developing relations between nations, promoting health of the population and international cooperation. These are very important and noble goals.

Of course, we also know the problems faced by our and other athletes. We will work orderly to resolve them. I am referring to anti-doping problems.

We have cooperated and will cooperate with WADA. I am just hoping that all of these problems will be resolved on the basis of equality and in accordance with the current sports legislation, and that nobody will be discriminated against for political reasons because the purpose of sports is to unite countries and people rather than divide them.

I am very happy to welcome all of you once again. I would like to wish you success. I hope we will have a straightforward, open discussion. We, my colleagues and I, will be pleased to answer any of your questions.

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