President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko believes that Ukraine and Belarus may jointly apply for hosting the Olympic Games in the future.
“The President of Ukraine offers us to think together about whether we can even apply for hosting the Olympic Games. We can do it, two countries can,” he said, speaking at the Second Forum of Regions of Ukraine and Belarus in Zhytomyr on Friday.
Belarus could host Olympic Games together with Russia or Ukraine, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.
“Of course, it is hard for us to compete with giants, but we can host the Olympics together with, let us say, Ukrainians or Russians,” the BelTA state news agency cited Lukashenko as saying in Brest.
Facilities for the Olympic Games are ready in Belarus, he said. “We’re going to build the national soccer stadium and a facility for water sports now, and soccer remains. Russia has the infrastructure for soccer. We can easily host the Olympics with them. And here, in Belarus, we can host mostly the Summer Olympics with the help of Russians or Ukrainians. They have facilities we’re lacking,” Lukashenko said.
Belarus hosted the Second European Games in June.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered that a strategic plan be developed for qualifying to host the Olympic Games in Ukraine. “We need a plan, let’s say, that we are ready to build in 3-4 years and then we can get in line to host the Olympics. We must be ambitious,” Zelensky put the corresponding task during a conversation with Minister of Youth and Sports Ihor Zhdanov and President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine Serhiy Bubka on the territory of the State Enterprise Olympic Educational and Sports Center Koncha Zaspa on Tuesday.
According to the head of state, now we need to develop a sports infrastructure which can then be used for the Olympic Games.
“We should give a task to our guys, who are looking for investments, give a task to our budget, to allocate money annually to the objects we need, and then will be used for the Olympics. At least, we must try to achieve this,” Zelensky said.
For his part, Bubka noted that the upcoming Olympic Games for which Ukraine can apply is the 2030 Winter Olympics or the 2032 Summer Olympics.
At the same time, President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine noted that it would be more real if we host some of the following Winter or Summer Youth Olympic Games in our country.
