At the Paris Olympics, 54 Russian athletes and 28 Belarusian athletes are expected to compete under a neutral banner. But this will be without the Russian wrestlers, who are among the best in the world. They finally announced on Saturday, July 6, their collective refusal of the invitation issued by the IOC to some of them.
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With our correspondent in Moscow, Julian Colling
The decision not to go to the Paris Olympics was taken unanimously by the wrestlers and their coaches, according to the Russian Wrestling Federation. The latter denounced in its press release on Saturday the ” lack of fair play ” from the International Olympic Committee, which she believes will result in a ” competition parody ” end of July.
The Russians are to blame for the fact that only some of the wrestlers on the Russian team – and not all of them – were allowed to go to France: only ten wrestlers out of sixteen. And above all, they are clearly not the most promising profiles in terms of winning medals.
For example, the double Olympic champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev and the double world champion Zaur Uguev were rejected by the Olympic Games organization.
A similar decision was taken by Russian judokas
“ The unified world of wrestling has lost its last chance to see a competition between the best “, thus criticized the president of the Russian federation Mikhail Mamiashvili. He even evokes a ” dictatorship ” of the IOC which has arrogated to itself the right to compose the selections itself.
On June 28, the Russian Judo Federation made a similar decision, choosing not to send any eligible judoka to France.
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