Ex-Ukrainian/ex-Azerbaijani gymnast Oleg Stepko is now officially a Russian citizen and will be able to participate in the upcoming Russian Championships (only citizens are allowed to compete at nationals).
Vladimir Kochnev, Stepko’s coach in Novosibirsk, told R-Sport that Stepko is now officially a citizen and will receive the Russian passport in a few days:
“The process of finalizing the citizenship is over already, he took the oath of the Russian citizen. He’s already a citizen of the Russian Federation and receiving the passport is a formality, it will happen today or tomorrow. His plans for the near future is competing at the Russian Championships in Kazan. There are no goals for the competition”.
Valeri Alfosov, the head coach of the Russian MAG team commented to TASS on the announcement and did not sound very eager about offering Stepko a place on the team:
“I can only be happy for Oleg Stepko who, as I understand, fulfilled his desire and became a Russian citizen. We know him very well as an athlete. If he wants to compete for Russia at European and World Championships, he will have to answer to the same requirements as any national team member.
“He will have to be at the international level, to do routines of the international level and to demonstrate high results. We have a lot of requirements for the national team members and if he will meet all of them, we will invite him to the national team. However, it’s too early to talk about Stepko’s prospects. We haven’t seen him in the action for a very long time, but we know his strong and weak suites, know his psychology, how he competes, how he behaves on the competition floor and in the team setting. It’s not a new name in artistic gymnastics”.
