Ukrainian star to check Olympic guidelines with banned struggle tribute helmet | EUROtoday

As the Olympic males’s skeleton race commences on Thursday, all consideration will probably be fastened on Ukraine’s Vladyslav Heraskevych, whose deliberate defiance poses a big problem for the Milan Cortina Games.

Heraskevych intends to compete carrying a helmet devoted to Ukrainian athletes and coaches killed throughout the ongoing battle with Russia.

This tribute, nevertheless, has been deemed a violation of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) guidelines towards political statements and inappropriate for competitors.

Should Heraskevych proceed, he faces potential sanctions, together with disqualification from the Olympics.

This would undoubtedly place the IOC in a precarious place, as expelling an athlete for honouring struggle victims would nearly definitely provoke widespread criticism.

The IOC has sided with Heraskevych earlier than. When he displayed a “No war in Ukraine” signal after his fourth and last run on the 2022 Beijing Olympics, the IOC stated he was merely calling for peace and didn’t discover him in violation of the Olympic constitution.

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“We want him to compete. We really, really want him to have his moment,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams stated Wednesday.

“That’s very, very important. We want all athletes to have their moment and that’s the point. We want all our athletes to have a fair and level playing field.”

The first two runs of the race are on Thursday, with the ultimate two runs on Friday night time. Heraskevych is a authentic medal hopeful, and he is evidently keen to threat his likelihood at a medal for his tribute to these he considers heroes.

Visible on the helmet are teenage weightlifter Alina Perehudova, boxer Pavlo Ischenko, ice hockey participant Oleksiy Loginov, actor and athlete Ivan Kononenko, diving athlete and coach Mykyta Kozubenko, shooter Oleksiy Habarov and dancer Daria Kurdel.

“Some of them were my friends,” Heraskevych, who’s his nation’s flag bearer, instructed reporters of the portraits after his coaching session on the Cortina sliding centre.

There have been quite a few incidents over time the place athletes protested on the sector of play or on the medals podium.

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The most well-known case dates again to the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City when US sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised black-gloved fists throughout the 200 metres medal ceremony to protest racial injustice of their nation.

That led to their expulsion from the Games, though Smith stored his gold medal and Carlos his bronze.

More not too long ago, on the 2024 Paris Olympics, Afghan breakdancer Manizha Talash, a member of the refugee Olympic staff, was disqualified after carrying a cape with the slogan “Free Afghan Women” throughout a pre-qualifying competitors.

However, there have additionally been instances the place athletes and groups escaped punishment when their motion was not deemed political.

Australia’s ladies’s footnall staff unfurled a flag of the primary peoples of Australia on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 however, whereas not one of many recognised flags of taking part nations on the Games, the staff weren’t sanctioned.

Two Chinese biking medallists who wore badges that includes the pinnacle of their nation’s former chief Mao Zedong on the Tokyo Olympics podium escaped with a warning.