Ukrainian judokas will boycott the World Cup for the participation of Russian athletes

Ukraine will boycott the judo world championships in Qatar next week. The main Ukrainian judo competitors have announced that they will protest the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes.

Although the International Judo Federation defends that they will compete as neutrals and will not represent their countries.

Vitaliy Dybrova, coach of the Ukrainian judo team, has explained that they were preparing for this. “We understood that a situation like this could happen. But until the end we hoped that common sense would prevail. But no. On April 28, a few hours before the end of the registration period, the IJF website appeared the message that Russians and Belarusians are admitted to all their competitions as neutrals”.

The Federation says that an independent body will check the background and control the accounts of athletes on social networks.

Anyone found to be in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they say, will be excluded.