The Russian cross-country coach Yuri Borodavko made headlines with scandalous statements about the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes and accused the associations from Norway and Sweden of a perfidious motive.
After the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the FIS World Ski Federation decided to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes from all competitions. The national associations from Norway and Sweden banned Russia and Belarus before the world association. They decided arbitrarily to revoke the starting permission for Russians and Belarusians in their countries.
Russia’s cross-country coach Yuri Borodavko has now made headlines with scandalous statements in this regard. He believes that Norwegians and Swedes only used the war as an excuse to gain a sporting advantage.
“We are neither friends nor rivals”
“Let our rivals run against each other,” he defiantly told Russian broadcaster Match TV. “Let’s just say that we are neither friends nor comrades,” added the coach, who was hoping his runners would start in Norway because they were already in the country.
Especially for the Russian Natalia Nepryaeva, who is leading in the World Cup, the exclusion was hard, said Borodavko: “She leads the World Cup by a healthy margin and now there is a high probability that she will not win it.” In the coach’s eyes, that is exactly one of the reasons for the exclusion of his delegation.
“Obviously, one of the goals of the Norwegian and Swedish ski associations was to prevent Nepryaeva from winning. They just don’t want to see us on the podium,” Borodavko accused the national ski associations of having acted out of sporting motives.