No weakening of positions. Russia will remain on the Executive Committee of the International Gymnastics Federation – Sport
TASS, November 6. The President of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) Japanese Morinari Watanabe was expected to be re-elected to this post. This time, the head of the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation Vasily Titov, who has been the vice-president of FIG since 2012, did not get into the top leadership of the federation.
The elections were held on Saturday in Antalya, Turkey at the organization’s congress, which will end on November 7. On Friday it became known that the Russian woman Natalya Kuzmina will not take part in the elections for the head of the FIG technical committee in rhythmic gymnastics. Russia withdrew Kuzmina’s candidacy for the elections after she was criticized by the president of the All-Russian Federation of Rhythmic Gymnastics Irina Viner-Usmanova for refereeing at the Olympics. According to the results of the Olympic tournament, Dina Averina in the individual all-around and the Russian national team in the group exercises won only silver, the FIG technical committee later explained that there were no mistakes or bias in the actions of the referees in Tokyo.
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Despite Russia’s withdrawal of Kuzmina’s candidacy, her surname is on the lists of candidates on the initiative of the independent organization for the ethics of gymnastics, where Kuzmina filed a complaint. The Russian side filed a protest against this, and its arguments that Kuzmina did not represent anyone in the elections were accepted. The FIG Disciplinary Commission panel on Friday announced the cancellation of the so-called interim measures, thereby rejecting Kuzmina’s request. In the Saturday elections for the head of the technical committee, only Egyptian Noha Abu Shabana was a candidate, who headed the committee.
It is quite that the decision of the FIG to reject Kuzmina’s candidacy also influenced the results of the vice presidents. Titov, who was in the post of first vice-president, with the active participation of the former chairman of the technical committee was not allowed to participate in the elections, lost the vote to the Turk Suat Chelen. The five-time Olympic champion in artistic gymnastics Nelly Kim, representing Belarus, retained the post of vice-president, and the Qatari Ali Al-Hitmi became the first vice-president.
Expected advantage for Watanabe
At the same time, Titov, which is important for Russia, was elected to the FIG executive committee, like six other people.
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“It’s sad that it happened, but there will be no weakening of Russia’s position, because our result does not depend on whether we have representatives in the executive committee or not,” Valentina Rodionenko, senior coach of the Russian national artistic gymnastics team, told TASS. -So it is about the fact that you need to go out and show your programs, do not make mistakes – then everything will be all right. but it doesn’t work that way, it’s a sport. “
“It might have a big impact on the outcome.” representatives of our country held high posts, but Titov remained in the executive committee, and thank God.
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But Watanabe won the presidential election by almost a twofold margin, gaining 81 votes against 47 from the President of the European Gymnastics Federation, Azerbaijani Farid Gaibov. This result was predictable.
“My policy as FIG president is with the support of the national federations. “FIG national federations share their problems and together we try to solve them.”