"They are waiting for Putin to to impose": Russian Olympic champion speaks about provocation of the West

Olympic champion Svetlana Zhurova has expressed confidence that the international organization is waiting for dictator Vladimir Putin to decide to ban Russian athletes from the 2024 Olympic Games. The former speed skater noted that the Russian president believes that athletes should decide for themselves whether to go to Paris.

Zhurova said this in a comment to the propaganda news agency RIA Novosti. The winner of the 2006 Turin Olympics, speaking of a "totalitarian country" and a "tyrant president," called for not preventing Russian athletes from participating in next year's Games.

"It is almost unacceptable to go to the Olympics under such conditions. But there is an important point. Athletes have to decide for themselves whether to go or not. They expect our president to impose a complete ban on his own behalf. They really want this to happen so that they can point fingers and say, 'You are a totalitarian country! Your president is a tyrant." But we should not give them this chance. We are not the Soviet Union, and our president has voiced a completely different position: everyone has to make this decision for themselves," Zhurova said.

Earlier, former biathlete Alexander Tikhonov was upset that Russia failed to create a corruption scheme to influence the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its president Thomas Bach.

As OBOZ.UA previously reported, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov threatened "revenge" against the IOC because of its position on the aggressor country.

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