WASHINGTON, January 30. /TASS/. American authorities are putting pressure on international sports agencies to prevent Russian athletes from participating in competitions, especially under the Russian flag, the Russian embassy in the United States said in a statement on its Telegram channel.

"We drew attention to the atmosphere of malevolence being whipped up in local media and sports circles over the russophobic decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport to disqualify our figure skater Kamila Valieva for 4 years and deprive her of awards for allegedly using doping. All of this fits into the mainstream of the hybrid war unleashed by the West against the Russian Federation. U.S. authorities do not shy away from outright pressure on sports structures in order to prevent highly competitive Russian athletes from appearing at competitions, especially under the Russian tricolor," the Russian diplomats noted.

According to them, at the same time Washington is trying to "disrupt a number of major events" in Russia, including the Games of the Future (Kazan, February 21-March 3), BRICS Sports Games (Kazan, June 11-23) and World Friendship Games (Moscow and Yekaterinburg, September 15-29).

"The U.S. is clearly irritated by the fact that new formats, beyond the control of the West, are enjoying growing interest from countries of the Global South, tired of the politicization of high-performance sports," the embassy concluded.

On Monday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) disqualified Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva for four years for violating anti-doping rules starting on December 25, 2021. "All competitive results of Ms. Valieva from December 25, 2021 are disqualified, with all the resulting consequences," the CAS press service said in a statement.

At the 2022 Olympics Valieva took first place in the team event along with Mark Kondratyuk, Anastasia Mishina and Alexander Galliamov, Viktoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov.