China, Cuba, Egypt, Mongolia, CIS to participate in 2023 CIS games
The CIS Games are expanding to include more countries in 2023, becoming more international to include a Latin American country and a Middle Eastern state.
China, Mongolia, Cuba, and Egypt, in addition to nine of the 10 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), have confirmed that they would be participating in the 2023 CIS Games set for Belarus, Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Petrishenko said on Thursday.
"At present, nine CIS countries have already confirmed their participation. In addition, our friends from the People's Republic of China, Mongolia, Cuba, and Egypt will take part in certain sports," Petrishenko said during a meeting of the organizing committee, as quoted by the Belarusian SB News agency.
The event will take place in different Belarusian cities in order to demonstrate the tourist potential of Belarus to visitors, the premier explained.
CIS Games will be held in 11 Belarusian cities from August 4-14 and will include competitions in 22 sports.
The 2023 CIS Games will be the second edition of the CIS Games after the first was held in 2021. The organizing committee was created on March 24, 2022, in Belarus to hold the second edition of the games.
Originally, the games were introduced officially in June 2019 following an initiative taken by the Ministry of Sport of Russia and accepted by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The original version had 15 sports events, including badminton, basketball, futsal, shooting, table tennis, boxing, judo, karate, and wrestling.