The organizers of the CIS Games decided to postpone the games from 2020 to 2021, Tatarstan sports Minister Vladimir Leonov said at a press conference.

This is the fourth transfer of Games. Initially, the first ever games of the CIS countries were planned to be held on August 20-27, 2020, but due to the difficult epidemiological situation, it was decided to postpone them to September, and then to October.

It was expected that 3,500 athletes from Turkmenistan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine will take part in the games in Kazan. They will compete for about 280 sets of medals.

The postponement of the games is explained by the fact that in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, the participating countries do not have equal conditions.

"Due to the current situation in the world and in our neighboring countries, we had to postpone the CIS Games. The crisis intervened. Everything is different for everyone, and everyone should be in the same conditions. The games were not canceled, but postponed to 2021," the Minister said.

According to the Minister, the exact date is agreed with the Ministry of sports of the Russian Federation.

"We will hold them either before the Olympic games or immediately after, now we are choosing between the end of August and the beginning of July," Leonov added.

The initiator of the CIS Games was previously Russia. the decision to support this initiative was made at a meeting of the Council of heads of government of the CIS in October 2019.

15 sports facilities were planned to be used for the competition in Kazan. The opening and closing ceremonies were planned to be held in the sports complex "basket hall", according to the website of the CIS Executive Committee.