“Voronkov delayed the apology and for some reason did not smooth over the conflict” – Ishchenko on the coach who ended up in a racial scandal

Minister of Sports of the Kaliningrad region, five-time Olympic champion in synchronized swimming Natalia Ischenko said in an interview with that she was trying to resolve the situation with ex-coach of local volleyball Lokomotiv Andrei Voronkov involved in a racist scandal.

On May 12, 2022, during a timeout in the fifth game of the final series of the Russian championship with Uralochka, Voronkov, giving an instruction to his players, pushed aside Valery Zaitseva and said: “Why are you still catching this monkey? ” The phrase hit the tune “”. At that time, Cuban Ailama Sese Montalvo, who later left the club, was on the field as part of the Sverdlovsk region team.

– If a person himself does not want to change or change something, no one can force him. For some reason, he didn’t begin to iron out the conflict. I didn’t want to or I couldn’t – I don’t know, the interaction went with the club management. I delayed it with an apology, and everything came to an end,” Ishchenko told .

After the scandal, the executive committee of the VFV disqualified Voronkov for two years. On May 3, 2023, it became known that the second year of disqualification had been replaced by a suspended year, so Voronkov can return to training now. On the same day, Voronkov, in an interview with , said that he was not racist and issued a sincere public apology to Montalvo, whom he meant no offense.