Kuliak, Rodionenko, Kalabushkin may face one-year disqualification

Valentina Rodionenko told Russian media that the FIG is recommending a one-year disqualification for Ivan Kuliak and the coaches responsible for him at the competition – head of the delegation Valentina Rodionenko and the coach on the floor Igor Kalabushkin – because of the incident during the parallel bars final at the Doha World Cup earlier this month. Kuliak who was supposed to compete as a neutral athlete and remove official Russian symbols from his uniform taped the letter Z over the Russian coat of arms on his chest. The letter is the symbol of the Russian invasion in Ukraine and is worn by supporters of the war. Rodionenko said some officials in the FIG were pushing for a life-time ban, but in the end a one-year ban seems like the more likely punishment.

At the moment, Russia is already banned from the FIG events until further notice. Thus, if the ban of the country lasts longer than a year, Kuliak’s disqualification will not mean much.

Earlier, Valentina Rodionenko said she did not know in advance that Kuliak would wear the symbol but she supported his decision nevertheless. Igor Kalabushkin is Aleksandr Kartsev’s personal coach and was officially responsible for both Kartsev and Kuliak during the parallel bars final in Doha. However, it is not clear if he actually worked with Kuliak during the final because fellow gymnast Ivan Stretovich helped Kuliak during the final. Stretovich did not speak publicly on the matter but posted a story with the letter Z on his Instagram shortly after the final. Kuliak appears to be unrepentant in his comments to the media and is lauded as a hero by many people in Russia. Earlier this week, he was among a select group of athletes invited to Putin’s pro-war rally in Moscow where he appeared with the Z in the colors of the Russian flag pinned to his chest.

Rodionenko told R-Sport:

“On March 9th, I, the coach on the floor, and Vanya Kuliak got messages from the FIG’s Disciplinary Commission that our case is being considered. The proposal is the disqualification of all three of us, trippin Vanya of the medal and the prize money, a fine of 500 CHF for me and the coach on the floor. There isn’t much hope for a positive outcome, you know the current attitudes in Europe and the world. We’re under sanctions like all other sports. Although, a lot will depend on the lawyers, of course.”

“There are no reasons for the punishment. We did not break any rules and did not provoke anyone. No one said anything to us there. We left and, it seems like, the Ukrainian side appealed to the Disciplinary Committee. [The side] which had been provoking us and trying to create a conflict from the first day. As the head of the delegation, I approached an FIG representative, he said that he admonished them but they did not obey.”

“They [the Ukrainian gymnasts] broke competition rules for which, among other things, the punishment is lowering the score or even removal from the competition. They wouldn’t go out to the award ceremony if our [athletes] were on the medal podium. Overall, it was bullying, they were simply humiliating the country through our delegation, I can’t put it any other way. But we had no clashes or talks with them at all. And in the end, when we got home, it turned out we were to blame.”

“[Next week], we will have a meeting, the lawyers and the president of our [national] federation Vassily Nikolayevich Titov are working on it, then they will submit our explaining statements to the Disciplinary Committee. Although we’ve already written our explaining statements and send them to the lawyers. We’ll see, there’s always hope, although not much of it, to be honest, considering the situation around Russia.”

According to Vassily Titov, the hearing will be scheduled between March 28th and April 1st.

UPDATE:

Ivan Kuliak commented to Life.ru on the possible disqualification:

“Overall, I consider it unfair to ban me. I didn’t do anything rule-breaking. After all, I didn’t break any of those rules, but now [they] want to ban me. You see the attitudes towards our country in all this.”

There are, however, rules in the FIG’s Code of Conduct that prohibit harassment and intimidation at FIG competitions and wearing the symbol of the invasion to Ukraine while competing against a Ukrainian gymnast can certainly be considered harassment and inappropriate conduct.