MOSCOW, September 10. /TASS/. The artistic gymnastics refereeing at the Tokyo Olympics once again proved that the Olympics have become a political event, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation President Irina Viner-Usmanova said Friday.
During the Tokyo Olympics, Israeli athlete Linoy Ashram won over Team ROC’s Dina Averina despite a serious mistake — the loss of an item. The Russian side challenged the results, but the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) technical committee, led by Natalia Kuzmina, found no mistakes or signs of bias in the Olympics refereeing.
"I would stop at the Olympics. Everybody knows now and it is not a secret for anyone that this is a political event now. What do I mean? Look at our artistic gymnastics. This is our last sports, and the closing ceremony is ahead, the golden medal count is on. The UK has 22 golden medals, while Russia has 20. We have been winning all Olympic games, all World Championships for 20 years; we won the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships just one month and a half before the Olympics," Viner-Usmanova said.
"And what do we get at the Olympics? We lose in both disciplines under our appointee's leadership, without any grounds. It is clear that the competitors lost, but instead they become champions. And at the same time, we lose two golden medals to the UK at the last day of the competition. Should we have won them fair and square, then we would have ended on the fourth place instead of the fifth. This is politics for you. So, when we appoint our people for management offices, we must be sure that they will fight for Russia instead of showing the entire world that Russia is irrelevant to them and thinking only about themselves," she added.
Team ROC gymnasts also lost the first place in team performance to the Bulgarian national team.
The Team ROC took fifth place in medal count at the recently ended Tokyo Olympics with 20 golden, 28 silver and 23 bronze medals.