Russian and Belarusian FIG officials have never been banned. Nelli has been hard at work. So I don’t think having judges should be a big deal.
Is she still affiliated with Belarus, though? Or did she become unaffiliated a while back. She was living in the US, I think.
She is still affiliated. She’s lived in the US over 25 years. She may have dual citizenship, I don’t know but the FIG lists her as BLR.
Man, there are so many interesting opportunities here. Do you go with and instrumental of “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” or maybe pick something more modern like an instrumental of Katy Perry’s “Firework”? Does FIG have an anthem like the Olympics do? Play something by Tschaikovsky since he predates the Russian Federation (thought I have no idea if his works have been co-opted by the current government or anything)?
I would assume there is some kind of Olympic anthem, but I would be more than happy to entertain absolutely petty music choices.
There is, it got used for the Unified Team golds in team events in 92. I suspect they’d go for that again, comedic potential of other options notwithstanding.
No, of course not. That will only be determined by the FIG for athletes to decide to apply for neutral status. Each athlete will be evaluated based on their own situation.
Russian RG is in a slightly different position to AG since they nearly all train at private facilities and other than Dina and Arina, I’m not aware of anyone saying or participating in anything that could be seen as support of military action in Ukraine.
I doubt Melnikova will be cleared to compete.
Melnikova competes for the army sports club
They can enter, as all entries are provisional. The athlete would need to be cleared prior to the competition. It’s the same procedure as happened earlier this year with Nemour. Algeria would enter her for competitions whilst waiting for her clearance to come through, which only did a few days before African championships
