Three-time Olympic champion and nine-time world fencing champion, honorary president of the Russian Union of Athletes Galina Gorokhova told that the president of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach takes an inconsistent position.
On Tuesday, a meeting of champions and winners of the Olympic Games of different years was held in Moscow.
Earlier, IOC chief Thomas Bach said that Russian athletes who walked away from the special operation in Ukraine should be able to participate in international competitions in a neutral status.
Older Persons Day has been celebrated for 30 years. We have combined three anniversaries: the 30th anniversary of the Russian Athletes’ Union, the 50th anniversary of the Munich Games and the 70th anniversary of the Helsinki Games. We have two representatives of the USSR team: the 1952 Olympic champion Galina Ivanovna Zybina, lives in St. Petersburg, and we have already celebrated with her, and the winner of the 1952 Games in rowing Evgeny Nikolaevich Brago. Not all veterans were left without gifts today.
Everything took place at the highest level. Our holiday was decorated by the President of the ROC, Stanislav Alekseevich Pozdnyakov, among the guests was the last Chairman of the USSR State Sports Committee Nikolai Ivanovich Rusak and many other famous people. If you put all their Olympic gold medals together then all of Europe will not be equal to us. And the International Olympic Committee suspends us today…
– That’s a shame?
– Not that word. Too bad that Thomas Bach, himself an Olympic champion, speaks of regret that he did not become a lookalike, because he could not participate in Moscow in 1980, that politicians took up sport. And on what basis does he now suggest that our athletes write that they will perform without a flag or an anthem, that they do not agree with the operation? Who is he to make Russian athletes do this?
Bach himself entered politics and cannot leave it. I don’t understand his demands. And if I vote for Putin, won’t they let me go anywhere later? Who gave Bach such a right? The Olympic motto is: “Faster. Above. Stronger”. That year, “Together” was added. And Bach did everything so that we were not together. He did everything, got into the activities of the independent federations. The IOC orders them to keep Russia out.
In 1980, those who wanted it came to Moscow. And now they don’t see that the Russian language has been banned in the Donbass, that innocent people are being killed there? So let Bach get his ass out of his hot chair, go ahead and see what was there.
– Bach says he has nothing to do with Russia’s withdrawal.
“He was the first to recommend to the federations not to let us go anywhere. And if someone refused, he was in a hurry. We are hated because we are the most honest and the fairest. And they were all cheats in Europe, they lived on cheap gas from Russia and the colonies they owned. Now let them live without money, feel on an equal footing with others.
– At which Olympics will we see the Russian team again?
– I would like to attend the next one, in 2024. But today everything is changing so quickly… Like in 1991, when I was told: organize a union of athletes. I answered: the chairman of the Central Committee of the CPSU will not be approved, and I will only waste my time. And then life went on in such a way that we didn’t have to ask anyone – we went, handed over the papers and they announced to us: choose whoever you want. Who would have thought then? So it is today. We’ll crush them, and the winter will be good, and we’ll see who crawls to whom.
– What should athletes do when they find themselves at a crossroads: continue their career or think about something else?
– Look, what can they do besides sports? When I was engaged, in general, I once participated in the world championship. We loved sports and practiced them. But modern athletes have no motivation… All the conditions were there for you, the Spartakiad took place, trips, training camps. What else is needed? There were five world champions in one room – such a super championship was organised! And they didn’t go anywhere, they grew inside themselves. Today is a great time to grow a large number of strong athletes, coaches need to turn on their brains and then everything will be fine.
Source : MatchTV
