From October 16 to 19, 2024, the Minister of Sport and Leisure, Dr Lisi BESSI KAMA, visited Russia, as part of the twelfth international sports forum around the theme "Russia, a sporting power".
Opening the forum, the President of the Russian Federation, His Excellency Vladimir Putin, said that the initiative was aimed at strengthening international cooperation, and provided an opportunity for frank communication on a variety of sometimes highly charged topics, exchanging best practices in sports training, and methods of scientific support for amateur and professional sport. "In Russia, we see sport as an essential means of achieving national development goals, a powerful resource capable of improving people's quality of life, opening up new horizons for their personal development, making them believe in themselves, both in sport and in their lives in general", he added.
Taking an active part in the event, Minister Lidi BESSI KAMA conveyed the warm and fraternal greetings of the Head of State, His Excellency Faure Essozimna GNASSINGBE, to
his Russian counterpart and all his people.
In her presentation on the sub-theme of "the need to organize fair and equitable sporting Games and the inadmissibility of restrictive and discriminatory measures against athletes", the Togolese minister made the following observation: "Nowadays, sport, contrary to its fundamental values (tolerance, solidarity, respect for opponents, fair play, team spirit, etc.), is the victim of divergent geopolitical and geostrategic interests. Instead of being above all considerations, sport is unhappily trapped or caught in a vice by a world that royally ignores its ideals".
So what can be done to ensure that sport can play its part to the full, so that the world can once again experience hope, joy, benevolence and universal harmony?
For Minister Lidi BESSI KAMA, "the quest for an answer to this central question invites us to draw on our ingenuity to forge a new therapy that advocates the preventive and curative use of crises through sport, in an inclusive approach".
So she pleads: "To this end, I plead for the advent of an inclusive sporting world, culminating in the organization of sporting events where every athlete, regardless of nationality, can compete on an equal footing with other athletes. I advocate Games or sporting events without any discrimination against athletes, whatever their nationality. I advocate that fair sporting performances should be the only essential and sufficient criteria for drawing up the list of athletes qualified to take part in any sporting event of sub-regional, regional or international scope".
However, the Minister made it clear that her "approach, far from serving as an appendix to the divergent positions at stake, is to sound the alarm for a collective awareness so that sport can escape any kind of influence. It is by escaping all spheres of influence that sport can make an effective and lasting contribution to building a peace-loving world, a world without compartmentalization or demarcation".
In conclusion, she invited States "to use the socializing and peacemaking magic of sport to reduce national and international tensions, where dialogue, diplomatic ballets and military campaigns have often proved incapable of bringing peace and universal harmony.
Tête-à-tête between Dr Lidi BESSI KAMA and Mikhail Degtyarev
During his stay, Dr Lidi BESSI KAMA had a face-to-face meeting with his Russian counterpart, Mr Mikhail Degtyarev, to discuss sports and leisure issues of interest to Togo and Russia.
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