This week, Oleg Verniaiev gave an interview to a Ukrainian website Suspilne Sport in which he mentioned the tension on the national team that could make him consider switching citizenship. While Verniaiev said he hasn’t actually given it much thought, the interview attracted huge attention in the Ukrainian media and was picked up by many news sources.
Verniaiev felt that his words were taken out of context and posted a statement on the situation on his Instagram to clear things up. Interestingly, Verniaiev, who is a native Russian speaker, grew up in a predominantly Russian-speaking region of Ukraine, and normally posts on social media and gives interviews only in Russian, opted to post the statement in Ukrainian to emphasize his patriotism. Verniaiev has been accused of pro-Russian sentiments in the past when he took a photo with David Belyavskiy in 2015 – the two gymnasts posted with the flags of their respective countries. Verniaiev said that after the photo had made the news, he received threats. To add context, the photo was taken at the 2015 European Championships, just over a year after Russia had invaded Ukraine, including Verniaiev’s native city Donetsk. Verniaiev hasn’t been able to visit the city since then.
Verniaiev posted on Instagram:
“Regarding the latest news, I would like to correct the headlines of our media. As always, not all the information was transmitted from the words that I said, that’s why I will now express my opinion in a few sentences. First of all, I was born in Ukraine, in my native city of Donetsk, and I raised the flag of my country at the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016. I do not intend to blackmail anyone with [the threat of] me switching to [represent] another country, I haven’t even thought of it, especially with my situation with the ban. I understand that my words were turned upside down for big headlines.
I covered the events that are happening inside our national team, but my words were perverted and shown in a shameful light.”
“Second, why wasn’t it said that the sport is supported and developed with the support of the President and the Ministry [of Sports]? If we’re talking about artistic gymnastics specifically, the exact floor that we needed in Tokyo and that costs a lot was bought for us. At the same time, there is a new gym for artistic gymnastics and other sports being built at the Olympic training center Koncha-Zaspa. I hope that my situation with the disqualification will be resolved and I’ll be able to come back to the gym and prepare for the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 side by side with our coaching staff and young promising guys on our team, bringing back the artistic gymnastics tradition when we never came back from the Olympics without medals. Thank you, everyone, for your attention.”
Suspilne Sport, the website that published the original interview, posted Verniaiev’s statement as well. However, they reiterated that the original interview had Verniaiev’s exact words and nothing was changed in the interview.
