XVIII Summer Diplomatic Games at Zavidovo Recreation Complex

This year the Games were timed to the 95th anniversary of GlavUpDK. The sports festival involved employees of more than 30 embassies, including some 20 heads of diplomatic missions.  Large teams of the embassies of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan participated in the sports events. The diplomatic missions of Ghana, Myanmar, Serbia, Switzerland, Sri Lanka, South Arica and South Ossetia were also active participants in the competitions. 

Speaking at the Games’ opening ceremony, Acting Head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s GlavUpDK Elena Ryabtseva said that the Summer Diplomatic Games always attract a large number of participants, because health and physical fitness are for diplomats the same indispensable condition for successful work as professional knowledge and experience. Elena Ryabtseva also wished the competition participants excellent sports results, and the supporters and guests – unforgettable impressions from their stay at the Zavidovo Recreation Complex.

President of the Russian Athletes Union, three-time Olympic champion Galina Gorokhova read out a greeting to the participants in the XVIII Summer Diplomatic Games from the Russian Olympic Committee, which said that the sports festival at the Zavidovo Recreation Complex has become a really good tradition, uniting under the banner of sports people of different countries and ages and helping to promote a healthy lifestyle.

The Diplomatic Games’ program had less events than the recent Olympic Games in Brazil, but the intensity of the sports rivalry at the Zavidovo grounds equaled the events at Rio de Janeiro stadiums, the more so that the weather favored the athletes with a beautiful hot summer day. The competition judges were traditionally the famous Soviet and Russian athletes, Olympic champions, World and European champions. Prizes were contested in eight sports: cross-country, futsal, volleyball, basketball, shooting, fishing, billiards and lawn tennis. The Inter-Starts (Inter-Sports) team competitions among the embassies for the GlavUpDK Cup were organized on the occasion of the anniversary.

The teams of the diplomatic missions of Belarus, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa and South Ossetia showed the best performance at the Games. The highly trained GlavUpDK employees demonstrated the will to victory, winning in the futsal and volleyball competitions. The international team of the South African and Myanmar embassies won the Inter-Starts competition.