"The attitude is like a second class. We simply do not exist": Russian Olympic champion accuses IOC of humiliating Russians

Olympic champion Svetlana Zhurova threw a real tantrum over the conditions for Russian athletes to be admitted to the 2024 Games in Paris. The State Duma deputy complained that the international community treats representatives of the aggressor country "as second-class citizens."

Zhurova said this in a comment to the propaganda news agency RIA Novosti. According to the former speed skater, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has allegedly imposed unfair and unjustified sanctions on Russian athletes.

"There is actually a crazy difference in the conditions they have set now and the conditions of the last Olympics, when there were other reasons for our neutral status. Now the conditions that have been put forward are humiliating in my understanding. But I also understand that the IOC can toughen them at any time. This is a second-class treatment. The neutral status makes it clear that we are not there, it's not about bums. We simply do not exist for them," Zhukova said.

It should be noted that the day before, the head of the All-Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation (ARGF) Irina Viner called the Russian athletes who agree to compete in the 2024 Olympics in neutral status a "team of homeless."

Earlier, the IOC banned Russian and Belarusian athletes not only from using national symbols in the French capital, but also from participating in the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov immediately accused the IOC of infringing on the rights of athletes from Russia.

In turn, Thomas Bach himself spoke out against the so-called collective responsibility of Russian athletes for the war in Ukraine. The Russian Federation itself has already started harassing athletes who agree to go to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris in a neutral status.

As OBOZ.UA previously reported, a well-known Russian figure skating coach Tatyana Tarasova called the conditions for Russian athletes to participate in the Olympics "inhuman ".

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