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Sofya Velikaya says she is going to refuse to compete on the Olympic Video games until it’s below her nation’s flag
Russian fencing star Sofya Velikaya has acknowledged that she intends to boycott Olympic competitors until she is allowed to compete below her nation’s flag and anthem, based on a report by TASS.
Velikaya, a double Olympic champion and a number of world title winner, is among the many most well-known names in fencing however has reacted with frustration to suggestions by the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) for additional restrictions on Russian athletes following the onset of the nation’s navy operation in Ukraine.
As well as, the rights of Russian athletes to compete below their very own flag and anthem is already restricted after allegations of state-sponsored doping violations – a state of affairs which is ready to come back to an in depth in December of this yr.
At the newest Olympics in Beijing, Russian athletes competed below the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).
And so far as Velikaya is anxious, she needs no a part of a sporting establishment which she sees as discriminatory.
“Everybody needs to be on an equal footing – to carry out below their very own flag and with their very own anthem,” Velikaya is quoted as saying, by way of translation.
“Now the Olympic Motion is a giant query. Till equal circumstances are created, I’d not go to the Video games.”
Velikaya, 36, was the flagbearer on the final Olympic Opening Ceremony in Tokyo, main the delegation carrying a white flag with the Russian Olympic Committee emblem emblazoned on it. She went on to win gold within the crew occasion in addition to a person silver medal.
In 2016, she devoted her Olympic crew gold medal to Russian athletes who had obtained doping bans. She additionally picked up a silver medal on the Video games in Brazil so as to add to the one she earned in London in 2012.
Shortly afterwards, in November 2016, she was elected to the Russian Olympic Committee Athletes’ Fee.
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