Former head coach of the Russian national hockey team Vyacheslav Bykov reacted to the news that the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has provisionally included the Russian team among the participants in the 2026 Olympic Games in Italy.
The IIHF released the schedule for the qualifying and hockey tournament for the 2026 Olympic Games on Tuesday. The Russian team is placed in Group C with the American team, with the notation that this is the “ranking theoretical” of the Russians in the event “if a decision is made to return them to tournaments under the auspices of the IIHF”. The two remaining members of Quartet C will be determined after the qualifying tournament.
— Is the IIHF’s decision to include the Russian team in the group stage of the Olympic Games a sign of the imminent return of our teams to international competitions? It is difficult for me to say anything about this. The IIHF has seven Fridays a week, Bykov said as quoted by Metaratings.ru
The 2026 Winter Olympics will take place in February in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy).
The IIHF suspended Russian and Belarusian teams from participation in competitions under its auspices at the end of February 2022.
Metaratings.ru
Source : MatchTV
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