AFP/Scanpix/LETA photo
Gints Narogs, “Latvijas Avīze”, JSC “Latvijas Mediji”
The International Martial Arts Federation (UWW) has allowed athletes from occupying Russia and their supporters, Belarus, to participate in international competitions, while the Equestrian Federation has maintained the ban.
Following the recommendation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to give the green light to the return of the occupiers to sports, the international leaders of taekwondo and combat sports have done so, joining boxing and fencing. The Table Tennis Federation is also close, which does not oppose the IOC’s recommendation, but still plans to develop guidelines to determine which athletes or officials qualify as a neutral athlete. “Wrestling as a sport has a unique ability to bring people from different cultures and backgrounds together. Our sport has a great potential to help build peace and tolerance between different communities, countries and regions,” explains the decision of the UWW management, head of the organization and at the same time a member of the IOC executive committee, Nenad Lalović, who is a Serb by nationality. The International Equestrian Federation (FEI) president Ingmar de Foss of Belgium is also a member of the IOC, but the FEI is in no rush to follow the IOC’s lead, stating that it cannot currently define or properly assess which athletes qualify for neutrality status and which do not. “The FEI board agreed that we do not have the necessary tools to fairly and objectively assess the conditions of participation of individual neutral athletes and support staff, as set out in the IOC recommendations. Therefore, all athletes, horses and officials from Russia and Belarus are still prohibited from participating in FEI events,” de Foss insists.
Russian and Belarusian youth up to the age of 17 will immediately be able to return to combat sports on the international circuit, the rest will be checked whether they meet the standard of neutrality, that is, do not support the war in Ukraine and do not receive funding from the military structures of their country. Russia won four gold medals in martial arts at the Tokyo Olympics last year. Combat sports are especially popular in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya.
It is interesting that the decision of the international federations does not yet mean that the Russians will really have all the gates open, which can be verified these days with the example of fencing. Several countries – Germany, France, Sweden and Denmark – have refused to hold World Cup stage competitions if representatives of the occupiers compete there. Poland joined them yesterday, as the Women’s World Cup was scheduled to take place in Poznań at the end of April. The Poles first demanded that Russian representatives each confirm in writing that they condemn and are against the war in Ukraine, but when this option was rejected and called discriminatory, the Poles announced yesterday that they would not hold the competition at all.
Themes
