Intl sports organizations purposefully put pressure on Russia - Mutko
MOSCOW. Aug 18 (Interfax) - International sports federations are trying to discredit Russian athletes and the country as a whole, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said.
"There is a directive to discredit Russian athletes, the leaders and the country in general. The impression is that there is a task to write or say something bad about Russia at least once a week. And this will continue. This entire form of pressure on Russia has already taken on some inhuman nature," Mutki said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper.
"For example, our boxer Yevgeny Tishchenko was booed at the tournament [in Rio], but everyone stays silent. But there are international conventions, and the Charter of the IOC [International Olympic Committee] calls for respect and for any possible instances of discrimination to be suppressed," he said.
A conclusion that can be drawn from the present situation is that "when it comes to the Russians, no norms are working, and all can do whatever they want," the ministry said.
"Take Darya Klishina. The Court of Arbitration for Sport [CAS] overturned the decision of the International Association of Athletics Federations [IAAF] to bar the Russian long jumper from the Olympic tournament in Rio. After it, the IOC medical director [Richard Budgett] spoke in the style that 'we will again revisit Klishina - there was allegedly a deception on her part and the case has not been closed'. In other words, even a CAS decision is not an order for them, and if the court did not prove Klishina's guilt, it means that we will find something else against her. This is not normal," Mutko said.