MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian wrestler Nadezhda Sokolova is determined to compete in the Paris Olympics even if that means taking part as an independent.
One of Russia’s top freestyle wrestlers, Sokolova and dozens of other Russian and Belarusian athletes seeking Olympic glory this summer will have to compete without their country’s flags or anthems.
Russian sports chiefs in several other disciplines, including boxing, gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics, have said their athletes won’t go to the Games because they refuse to submit to what they see as humiliating and unfair demands.
But members of the wrestling squad – a sport Moscow traditionally dominates in the Games – say they are bent on getting to Paris.
“We have trained all our lives”, 27-year-old Sokolova told Reuters during a break from training in Moscow.
“Our dream, our goal is the Olympic Games, so even if without a flag (we will go).”
The Games, which are traditionally viewed as politically neutral celebrations of athleticism, have been racked by Ukraine-related controversy in the build-up to their July 26 start.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has required Russian and Belarusian athletes to undergo a rigorous vetting process to ensure they do not support Moscow’s conflict in Ukraine before they can compete.
Russians and Belarusians were initially banned from competing internationally following the start of what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, which it launched in part from Belarusian territory in February 2022.
In the run-up to Paris, Moscow has accused the IOC of engaging in a “conspiracy” to exclude top Russian athletes and has angrily rejected accusations from French President Emmanuel Macron that Russia may have plans to malevolently target the Games.
Russia has made clear it does not want a repeat of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which the Soviet Union and many Eastern Bloc states boycotted after Moscow accused Washington of fomenting “anti-Soviet hysteria”. The United States had boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Oleg Matytsin, who served as Russia’s sports minister until a government reshuffle in May, has urged Russian athletes not to stage a boycott this year, but said the decision whether to participate rested with each individual competitor.
The Russian wrestling team has slots for 16 athletes in Paris and the coaches say they plan to use all of them to honour competitors’ years of hard work.
Head coach of freestyle wrestling Khadzhimurat Gatsalov said his athletes would show “no aggression” towards Ukrainians in Paris. Several Ukrainian athletes have refused to shake the hands of their Russian opponents at recent competitions.
The conflict in Ukraine will end someday, Gatsalov told Reuters, “but we will (need to) go on living”.
But politics seem to be encroaching on the Russian wrestling team nevertheless.
The squad was dealt a blow in April when the IOC ruled that two-time Olympic champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev could not compete in Paris after new information surfaced about his support for the Ukraine conflict.
Matytsin, the former sports minister, told journalists that the Paris Games would not be “full-fledged” without Sadulaev, whom he called “not just the property of national sports, but the property of world sports”.
Flanked by fans after clinching a wrestling championship in Moscow in May, the 27-year-old Sadulaev said he had not lost hope that he would still make it to Paris somehow.
“Somewhere in the back of my mind, I am sure that I will go,” said Sadulaev, who won gold at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro and at Tokyo 2020.
Head coach Gatsalov has a simple message for his athletes: “‘We are going. Guys, get ready'”.
(Reporting by Reuters in Moscow; Writing by Lucy Papachristou in London; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Christopher Cushing)
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