"There is no reason": Russian Olympic champion calls the ban on Russia's flag the end of the road

Olympic gymnastics champion Artur Dalaloyan was outraged by the conditions for Russian athletes to participate in international competitions. The winner of the 2020 Games particularly criticised the ban on performing under the national flag of the aggressor country, calling it "bottom".

Dalaloyan said this in an interview with the YouTube channel Russia Is Me! The gymnast added that there are now allegedly no grounds for sanctions against representatives of the Russian Federation, forgetting that his country has unleashed a criminal war against the Ukrainian state and its citizens.

"Of course I'm upset, I could have performed. I'm in good condition, I'm not too old for gymnastics. To perform without the Russian flag is the bottom. It's hard. In Tokyo, under a neutral flag, we had a uniform that kept us warm. You couldn't say we weren't Russian. At the last Olympics, at least there was a clue. There was a doping scandal, and now I realise that most of it was pulled out of the water, but there were at least some explanations as to why it was under a neutral flag. Now the sanctions are over, there is no reason to go in neutral status, but they still put forward this condition," Dalaloyan said.

The day before, it became known that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) would not invite Russia and Belarus to the 2024 Games in Paris on 26 July.

As OBOZREVATEL previously reported, former world heavyweight champion Nikolai Valuev called for a ban on the IOC's activities in Russia.

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