Russian Artistic Gymnastics President Vassily Titov announced that Ivan Kuliak will compete at the Spartakiade next week:
“This competition is organized by the Russian Ministry of Sports and not the federation. We notified the FIG and the disciplinary committee regarding that and got no objections from them, so he will compete.”
Valentina Rodionenko said that the federation asked the FIG to allow Kuliak compete at the Spartakiade as soon as they received the decision on the appeal. Kuliak was already registered for the competition before the decision.
The Russian federation argues that the Spartakiade is not organized by them and is a competition of the Ministry of Sports. If the FIG actually wanted to look at the issue, it would not hold up to scrutiny. All Russian national competitions are organized by the Ministry of Sports. For example, this diploma for Yana Vorona’s gold medal on beam at the Russian Cup has the Russian Ministry of Sports header and logo – because the competition’s organizer was tecnically, as always, the Ministry of Sports and not the gymnastics federation. However, every single detail of the competition – the rules, the participants, the judges – were being handled by the gymnastics federation, just like they are at the Spartakiade. Even the directives for the two competitions are nearly identical and signed by both the Ministry of Sports and the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation.
Competitions not organized by the FIG member would be something like a club league or NCAA – competitions handled by a completely different organization and using different rules. But claiming that gymnastics at the Spartakiade is not governed by the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation would be like claiming that gymnastics at the Olympics or the Commonwealth Games is not governed by the FIg simply because the multi-sport competition has a different organizer. If you remember, just two months ago we saw that gymnastics at the Commonwealth Games is very much governed by the FIG when even the Games’ organizers could not allow Rhys Mcclenaghan compete without the FIG giving their permission.
Gymnovosti reached out to the FIG for a comment regarding Kuliak’s participation in the Spartakiade but have not received a response yet.
Overall, it appears that Russia is on the way back in. The FIG was one of the last federations to ban Russian athletes from international competitions and they even allowed them to compete at one last competition after the ban decision was made (and Ivan Kuliak promptly thanked the FIG for this by putting the pro-war symbol on his leotard at that competition). Valentina Rodionenko claimed multiple times that the FIG’s president Morinari Watanabe wants Russian athletes back. Back in April, she said, “Watanabe doesn’t see World Championships, Olympic Games without the Russian team”.
Rodionenko’s words are sometimes wishful thinking and not the reality, but in this case, Watanabe himself expressed it in his signature metaphoric style. At the opening ceremony at the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Sofia last week, Watanabe compared Russian and Belarusian athletes to flowers that cannot bloom because they are covered in snow and said that he hopes peace would come soon and the flowers would be able to bloom again.
Valentina Rodionenko said Russians would accept competing under a neutral flag again but would not renounce the war in Ukraine – which she calles a “special operation” because Russians are prohibited from calling it a war:
“There’s a hope we will be allowed to compete at the Olympic Games, there’s always a chance. This depends not on us but on you know who. Competing under a neutral flag? We’ve already competed at the Olympics without a flag or an anthem, what else can we do? If they force us to condemn the special operation, to renounce what is happening in [our] country, we will never do that, of course. If we are told we are allowed to compete without a flag or an athem and our superiors will decide [to allow it], then, of course, we will go, we’ve already competed like this.”
She added:
“The ban will not be forever, we will continue training. We will look for some international competitions at countries which will be willing to host us. We’re waiting now. At the end of November, there will be the FIG Congress in Turkey where we will be notified regarding our further participation.”
The Congress was originally supposed to take place in Norway but was moved to Turkey after Norvegian authorities refused to allow Russian and Belarusian participants to come. After it was moved to Turkey, the Norwegian federation decided to boycott it. While the European Gymnastics Federation banned Russian and Belarusian officials together with athletes, the FIG only banned athletes and judges. Russia’s Vassily Titov is still on the executive committee and Belarus’ Nellie Kim is still a vice-president. At the RG Worlds last week, Belarusian Liubov Charkashyna, a member of the RG technical committee, even participated in the award ceremony.
Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine shows no signs of slowing down. This morning, Vladimir Putin announced a mass draft into the army and thousands of Russians started getting draft notices. At least 300,000 people are expected to be drafted and sent to fight in Ukraine in the next few weeks.
Maybe they’ll draft Kuliak after he has finished competing?