In big competitions there is sometimes confusion with countries. Organizers are people too, which means they can make mistakes. However, sometimes simple human carelessness leads to high-profile situations.
At the Tokyo Olympics, Russians and Ukrainians stood on the same podium after the synchronized swimming competition. That’s when the incident occurred.
“THE MISNAMED FLAG AND THE FLAG WAS WRONG”
According to the results of the Olympic duet competition, the first place was taken by representatives of our team, more precisely, the team of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC). Svetlana Kolesnichenko and Svetlana Romashina were the best and rightly took the gold of the Games. Second place went to the Chinese couple Huang Xuechen and Sun Wenyan. Ukrainians Marta Fedina and Anastasia Savchuk won bronze.
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All the winners went to the podium and waited for the official announcement. However, something didn’t go as planned. Ukrainian women were suddenly “enrolled”… in the Russian national team!
“We heard that we were called incorrectly and that the flag was mixed up, but no one pays attention to that. The main thing is that everything ended well,” Marta Fedina told reporters.
The organizers quickly corrected themselves. However, Svetlana Kolesnichenko said there was an awkward pause for a moment. According to the champion, “no one understood what was happening.”
“Well, apparently Russia and Ukraine are the same for them,” summarized the coach of our athletes, Tatyana Danchenko.
DANGEROUS WORDS
After the incident, journalists, of course, began to ask Ukrainian women various questions about Russia. They responded very delicately. Fedina called Russian women “best friends” and Savchuk urged not to mix sports and politics.
“We are best friends with them (the Russians). I am very happy with this. When I was little I watched them on television. “We were all very kind and congratulated them on their victory, because we understand what it costs,” Fedina told Match TV.
“Sport is not political, we never act hostile in competitions, we support each other. We do not have a hostile attitude towards anyone, we respect everyone,” TASS quotes the athlete.
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In Ukraine, however, such sentiments were not shared. Several political figures began to condemn Fedina and Savchuk, saying their words were a blow to the country’s international positions. Many also did not like that at the press conference after the competition the synchronized swimmers spoke to journalists in Russian.
As a result, the International Olympic Committee even had to apologize for the incident.
“Yesterday the Ukrainian synchronized swimmers were presented incorrectly, there were mistakes on the part of the organizers. We apologize,” said a representative of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee.
Fortunately, the situation did not lead to a major international scandal. Ukraine’s athletes could have suffered much more for his words. Three years earlier, Karpaty goalkeeper Mikhail Gotra lost his place at the club for supporting the Russian team in the World Cup. So the bronze medalists of the Games came out well.
