While, for example, hockey player Alexander Ovechkin still proudly displays a joint photo with Putin on his Instagram, two-time Olympic pole vault champion and world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva decided to take the completely opposite step.
Even the Russian server Championat.ru noticed that the famous athlete, on the other hand, deleted the joint photo with the president from her profiles.
Isinbayeva posted her photo on the Internet back in 2017, when she became an official part of Putin’s presidential campaign. But now she decided to remove it.
Elena Isinbayeva deleted a photo with Russian President Vladimir Putin from her social networks. We are talking about a photo of the athlete from 2017, where she publicly announced joining the Putin Team.
The photo was taken during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi and published on the eve of… pic.twitter.com/ZV0rjqftXl
— dymkag (@dymkag) September 20, 2023
The former athlete lives in Spain, and despite a series of sanctions against Russian athletes, she was once again allowed to work in the athletes’ commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Indeed, the IOC Ethics Commission did not find evidence that it actively supported this war against Ukraine or that it was connected to the Russian army after the beginning of the invasion in February 2022. And this despite the fact that she reached a relatively high rank in the army.
“In Russia, as in any other European country, every athlete belongs to a club. Until 2018, I represented CSKA and received high awards and titles for exceptional sports performances. The ranks that are being discussed now are only formal, because I am not and have never been in the service of the armed forces of the Russian Federation,” she defended herself.
