The dispute between the two cross-country skiing stars Emil Iversen and Veronika Stepanova is entering the next round. After the Russian made allegations against the Norwegian a few days ago, he now reacted.
For a few days now, the two cross-country skiing stars Emil Iversen and Veronika Stepanova have been engaged in a verbal exchange of blows via social media and local newspapers.
Iversen got the ball rolling in Stepanova’s eyes after the Norwegian told Dagbladet that he hoped to see as little as possible of Russian athletes while Vladimir Putin was still in office.
The Russian responded with an Instagram post in which she personally attacked the Norwegian, suggested he resign and wrote that nobody in Russia was interested in his opinion.
“Of course, a lot of people called me about it and asked me about it, but I didn’t answer. I probably said something about Russia that she didn’t like,” Iversen told the Norwegian online newspaper “net payments” on Stepanova’s words.
Iversen is convinced that Stepanova is only interested in staying in touch and producing headlines. “She’s a lot worse than me,” joked the Norwegian: “She’s welcome to keep talking, but what she says doesn’t affect me. I don’t follow her on Instagram and I don’t know her at all. I still have her as well as I do never seen. I only ever see her in [den norwegischen Zeitungen] ‘Verdens Gang’ and ‘Dagbladet’.”
Emil Iversen is not the first to accuse Stepanova of generating headlines with provocative posts. The Russian has already received criticism from her own camp. Among other things, the national cross-country president Yelena Välbe accused her of suffering from “star fever”.