Italian Gymnastics Federation announced it will join the boycott of the FIG Congress next month over the participation of delegates from Russia and Belarus. Five other countries previously said they would boycott the Congress – Ukraine, Norway, Poland, Lithuania, and Estonia. Latvia was still deliberating whether to boycott the Congress as of last week.
While Valentina Rodionenko claimed earlier that Estonia and Poland boycotting the Congress would not matter because they “are not the trendsetters”, Italy, a much more prominent gymnastics power, will be harder to ignore. It will also likely that other countries will follow the suit soon.
Nevertheless, the Russian Gymnastics Federation’s President and an FIG Executive Committee member Vassily Titov claimed the Congress will still happen with the participation of Russian delegates:
“143 countries are members of the International Gymnastics Federation, 130 have already registered [for the Congress]. This means that the Congress is legitimate, it will happen and it will make all the necessary decisions. Each country makes their decision regarding participation [in the Congress] independently. It’s a pity that our sports colleagues are trying to overly politicize the participation of the Russian and Belarusian delegations”.
Italy’s boycott announcement comes just after the Ukrainian Championships had to end a day early due to Russian missile strikes on Kyiv.
