"This is humiliating". Russia refuses to accept Sevastopol and Crimea into its athletics team

Crimea and Sevastopol will not be part of the All-Russia Athletic Federation (ARAF), said in an interview with Forpost the "president" of the "Sevastopol Athletics Federation" (SAF) Igor Paklin. The official said that his "federation" was allegedly refused to be accepted into Russia in order to have a chance to regain its membership in World Athletics. In 2015, Russia was expelled from the organisation due to a doping scandal.

"The Russian Ministry of Sport decided that we would simply register as a legal entity and work in parallel with the ARAF, but without confirming our membership in the All-Russian Federation," the occupiers' accomplice was outraged by the situation.

Paklin considers it a humiliation that a large city like Sevastopol has not yet built an athletics arena since 2014.

"Until an indoor athletics arena is built in Sevastopol, it is very difficult to talk about the development of athletics as a sport, as without such a arena, athletes lose 4-5 months of training per year. Sevastopol does not deserve this attitude. It is a federal city. And not to have a single athletics arena is humiliating," said Paklin.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, the Russian Football Union (RFU) is preparing to include teams from the temporarily occupied Crimea in the second league of the aggressor country's championship. At the same time, local clubs will not become members of the national federation. In this way, Russia hopes to avoid additional sanctions.

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