Double Olympic champion in biathlon, deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Sergei Chepikov on the air of the show “There is a subject!” on the channel, he said that he considered the position of Russian athletes who change their citizenship just for the sake of participating in the Olympics to be incorrect.
Earlier, the head of the State Duma Committee for Physical Culture and Sports, Dmitry Svishchev, told that the deputies were discussing the possibility of introducing compensation in the state when athletes change their sports citizenship.
— If we talk about sporting citizenship, how can we approach its evolution? Is there a need for a law on compensation for athletes?
— Certain rules of international law should already be in force here. We can practically establish nothing by law, because there are also marriages with citizens of other countries. Leaving at a difficult time for the country is ugly and unpatriotic to say the least. They will leave, then want to come back. How will they look their teammates in the eye?
There are situations where they left for family reasons, maybe they wanted to live somewhere for a long time. But if it’s just to participate in the Olympic Games under a different flag, in order to realize yourself as an athlete, I think it’s not right. We all need to be patient, unite all our forces and not shake society,” Chepikov said on .
At the end of March, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced recommendations for the admission of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international competitions in neutral status. Recommendations include individual admission, neutral status, banning participation in team sports, and banning the participation of athletes associated with security forces or who have expressed support for the SVO. The decision on the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, as the IOC noted, will be made “at the appropriate time”.
Source : MatchTV

I’m John White and I’m an experienced journalist working in the news industry. My specialty is covering sports news, which I’ve been doing for over 6 years now. During this time, I have worked as an author with Athletistic, a popular online news website focusing on sports topics.