ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- The 2024 Paris Olympics began with Uzbekistan hailing its first-ever female gold medalist at the games and ended with its boxers scooping more gold medals than any other national boxing team since Cuba two decades ago.
But for some Olympics-watchers in Central Asia, these games were as much about celebrating a returned spirit of cross-country friendship as they were about podium finishes.
“There has been an incredible unity among Central Asians during the Olympics [in] 2024,” wrote Bermet Tursunkulova, who served as deputy education minister from 2014 to 2015, in an August 11 Facebook post.
“I don’t think we ever witnessed something like this before.”
Tursunkulova’s post was accompanied by now-viral scenes of fans in Paris standing together with the flags of all five Central Asian countries, Uzbeks hailing Kyrgyzstan’s silver medal-winning boxer Munarbek Seiitbek-uulu with chants of “Kyrgyzstan,” and a photo of Seiitbek-uulu embracing his victorious opponent, Abdumalik Halokov.
The pair’s gold medal bout on August 10 -- a day when both countries secured their best-ever Olympic medal haul -- had plenty of back stories.
Conflict Becomes Cooperation
First came the geopolitical coming together.
Eight years ago, on the heels of the Rio Olympics, relations between Tashkent and Bishkek were at their nadir.
Rather than pictures of Uzbek and Kyrgyz fans sharing heartwarming moments at the games, it was images of a disputed mountain on the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border filling up Internet space, amid a second standoff between the two countries’ troops in 2016.
But within a week of the Rio games finishing, Uzbekistan’s long-ruling autocratic leader Islam Karimov was hospitalized with a stroke, which ultimately culminated in his death.
Although Uzbek authorities waited nearly a week to inform the world that he was in a “critical condition,” it is likely he was already in a coma on August 27.
That timing fueled a popular, if never confirmed rumor, that the strongman had overdone celebrations of his country's successes in Rio -- the games where Tashkent established itself as a new superpower in amateur men’s boxing.
More important than the cause of Karimov’s death, though, was the fact it precipitated an immediate improvement in Uzbekistan’s frosty relationships in Central Asia after successor Shavkat Mirziyoev took power.
This development has had a knock-on effect in the sports world, as witnessed at the first Olympics to feature spectators since 2016.
And solidarity extended beyond the stands.
Seiitbek-uulu made history by becoming the first Kyrgyz to contest a gold-medal match in Olympic boxing.
But he got there with assistance from a coach from Uzbekistan’s boxing team, Akmal Hasanov, who worked as one of Seiitbek-uulu’s coaches in the knockout rounds leading up to the final because Seiitbek-uulu’s personal coach was, inexplicably, not included in Kyrgyzstan’s Olympic delegation.
To avoid a conflict of interest, Hasanov obviously did not work with Seiitbek-uulu in the final.
But the Uzbek trainer made sure to wish Seiitbek-uulu good luck in the buildup to the final, presenting him with a traditional Uzbek robe and hat as gifts.
“Munarbek, I am proud of you reaching the final. I am happy the people of Kyrgyzstan are showing such results. Let the strongest man win!” Hasanov told him.
Cheered On In Tajik Bars
The achievements in these games of a friendlier Uzbekistan -- eight golds, two silvers, and three bronzes -- have been admired and celebrated in other Central Asian countries.
Correspondents of RFE/RL’s Tajik Service noted that the Uzbek boxers had been cheered on in sports bars in their country's capital, Dushanbe.
There was, moreover, extra emotion in the men’s boxing finals on August 9 and 10 after the boxing team’s legendary head coach, Tulkin Kilichev, suffered an apparent cardiac arrest just after the team claimed its first boxing gold on August 8.
Kilichev, who has helped mastermind Uzbekistan’s rise in the world of Olympic boxing, was treated by medics from the British boxing team and was apparently recovering in a Paris hospital after the scare.
Bahodir Jalolov, the boxing team’s super-heavyweight star, described Kilichev as “more than a coach or a father” as he dedicated the second Olympic gold of his career to his mentor.
In Kazakhstan, whose games petered out after judo gold on the first day, there was also plenty of online praise for the Uzbeks’ success.
But it was accompanied by some introspection, after Kazakh officials claimed to have spent some $660 million on sports in 2023, more than three times what they spent in neighboring Uzbekistan.
At past Olympics, that kind of largesse has helped secure notable medal hauls for Astana.
But in Paris it brought only one gold, three silvers, and three bronze medals, leaving Kazakhstan 43rd in the medal rankings, 30 places behind Uzbekistan and 21 places short of Astana’s best-ever finish at Sydney in 2000.
Kyrgyzstan cannot be accused of overspending for its two silvers and four bronzes.
Uzur Juzupbekov, a Greco-Roman wrestler who won bronze in Paris, caused a stir when he informed journalists that the Kyrgyz Olympic team had no dieticians or psychologists on its staff.
And video footage of Seiitbek-uulu’s personal trainer celebrating his protege’s successes from the dormitory where he lives with his family in southern Kyrgyzstan also sparked criticism, given that Kyrgyz officials were able to attend the games.
Neighboring Tajikistan’s athletes meanwhile took home three bronzes -- two in judo and one in boxing -- more medals than the country had won at the 2012, 2016, and 2020 games combined.
Super-authoritarian Turkmenistan won nothing, a long-standing tradition that the country has only broken with once, in Tokyo, when weightlifter Polina Guryeva managed to bag a silver medal.
President Serdar Berdymukhammedov responded to the latest failure by issuing sports committee chief Allaberdy Saparov a “strict reprimand” for the “improper performance of official duties and shortcomings in his work,” state media reported on August 8.
