Russian gymnast with ‘Z’ pro invasion of Ukraine, it’s stormy

The Z of the tanks deployed by Russia in the war in Ukraine on the shirt of Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak, sported yesterday at the Doha World Championships is “obviously a deplorable gesture, to be condemned. There will be sanctions, rightly so”. Jury Chechi, ‘totem’ of Italian gymnastics, at Adnkronos comments on the gesture made yesterday by the Russian athlete. In the award ceremony, Kuliak – who got on the third step of the podium – showed on the uniform the ‘Z’ that characterizes the means used by Russia in the war in Ukraine. Next to Kuliak, on the first step of the podium, was the Ukrainian Illia Kovtun, winner of the parallel bars. Read also “I can assure you that the feeling shown by the gymnast is not common: I have many real Ukrainian and Russian friends, people with whom I trained, and I can assure that they are suffering a lot from this war. And in Russia they can’t even talk about it, because you go to jail for 15 years. A dear friend of mine, who knows Putin well, has always struck me: if he talks about Putin, he first looks around to see if anyone can hear him. In this situation, however, sport is reacting united and on the side of reason “, continues Chechi. Kuliak’s gesture will in all likelihood be sanctioned. “A completely out of place gesture, and a bad case in the world of gymnastics. Good the Ukrainian gymnast who did not react to the provocation”, Federgymnastics president Gherardo Tecchi told Adnkronos. “I immediately called the president of the world Federgymnastics, Watanabe, they had already taken note of everything and obviously they have referred him to world sports justice. An unspeakable and inadmissible gesture. Up to now sport is playing its part in this tragedy, many do not appreciate these positions but I disagree: today our word must be in defense of an attacked people “. Not just words but” also facts: we will soon host 20-30 Ukrainian athletes in the Padua area, and we are contacting the Ukrainian federation to find out if they need hospitality at the Giulio Onesti Olympic Training Center in Rome. The whole sport is moving in unison, we try to do our best, hoping that this bad story will end soon “.