A first step. Timid, certainly, but symbolic. For the first time since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, a Russian delegation will participate at the end of April in an international multi-sport competition abroad. TASS agency reports that 48 athletes will travel to Venezuela to take part in the 2023 ALBA Games. The event is scheduled from April 21 to 29. It involves 35 sports and should bring together 3,500 athletes from 11 countries. Russia will be represented in boxing, beach volleyball, karate, table tennis, trampoline, weightlifting and rhythmic gymnastics. An official invitation to participate in the ALBA Games was sent at the end of February by the Venezuelan Minister of Popular Power for Youth and Sports, Mervin Maldonado, to the Russian Minister of Sports, Oleg Matytsin. The Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) was created on December 14, 2004, at the initiative of then Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. In addition to its two founding countries, it includes Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Dominica, Grenada, Nicaragua, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
