Double Olympic medalist and triple World Championship medalist Kliment Kolesnikov told that in the future he does not rule out the possibility of obtaining neutral status to participate in international competitions.
Kolesnikov missed the 2024 Olympics in Paris; the 24-year-old Russian was not granted neutral status.
The All-Russian Swimming Federation (RSF) previously announced that swimmers would begin enjoying neutral status ahead of December’s world championships in Budapest. In October, Kolesnikov told that he had not requested neutral status.
— Do you have a goal: to participate in the World Long Course Swimming Championships, which will take place in 2025 in Singapore? And is there a principled position on whether a neutral status should be adopted?
– The fact is that I adhere to this position – I am not ready to leave under certain conditions that apply to the admission of Russia. But at the same time, I hope that the international situation will calm down by then and everything will return to normal in sport.
Or maybe this will lead to the fact that everyone will be content with a neutral status, and thus we will travel to the 2028 Olympics. And then either you are a super-patriot of your country, but then you can stop swimming. Or the whole team gets neutral status and competes internationally, and you have no reason not to do the same.
— That is, you think that the world situation by 2025 will change in such a way that…
— Yes, Russia will have full access. And we will go to international tournaments, like before. As I said, we are above all sportsmen, professionals. And we have to perform. But today my position is the same as before. Somehow everything seems wrong.
But what happens next? What if everything stays the same, but the whole team receives neutral status and goes to the world championships, while I stay at home? I won’t feel very good about that either. Therefore, I will proceed from the fact that I am an athlete. And make a choice based on this,” Kolesnikov told .
In November, it became known that in the new edition of the rules of the international federation (World Aquatics) on neutral status, there was no clause limiting the applications of Russians for distances at international starts, there was no no restrictions on participation in the program team types, and there are also no restrictions on meeting the standard exclusively outside of Russia and Belarus. On Thursday, the first vice-president of the Russian Swimming Federation, Vladimir Salnikov, told that representatives of the CSKA and Dynamo sports clubs can claim neutral status.
On Thursday, Kolesnikov clocked his third time (51.04) in the 100m backstroke semi-final at the Russian Short Course Swimming Championships, which take place in St. Petersburg from November 21-26.
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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.
