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Sofya Velikaya says she is going to refuse to compete on the Olympic Video games until it’s beneath her nation’s flag
Russian fencing star Sofya Velikaya has said that she intends to boycott Olympic competitors until she is allowed to compete beneath her nation’s flag and anthem, in line with 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 army operation in Ukraine.
As well as, the rights of Russian athletes to compete beneath 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 12 months.
At the latest Olympics in Beijing, Russian athletes competed beneath 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 beneath their very own flag and with their very own anthem,” Velikaya is quoted as saying, through translation.
“Now the Olympic Motion is an enormous query. Till equal situations are created, I might 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 workforce occasion in addition to a person silver medal.
In 2016, she devoted her Olympic workforce 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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