MOSCOW, June 9. /TASS/. Global sports is becoming less dependent on the political situation and is returning to its centuries-old principles and traditions, a lawmaker with the Russian parliament’s lower house, the State Duma, told TASS on Tuesday.
The European Armwrestling Federation (EAF) earlier fined two Ukrainian Para athletes, Dmitry Lutsishin and Leonid Sidorchuk, 250 Euros (almost $290) for refusing to listen to the Russian national anthem, which was played in honor of Andrey Gavrilov's victory at the European Championships.
"Europe seems to have made a U-turn that it has not yet realized. If someone had even alleged a year ago that someone in a European country had been fined for refusing to listen to the Russian national anthem, at best they would have twirled a finger at their temple in response," Amir Khamitov, a deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Physical Culture and Sports, said.
"It is now a reality that we see with our own eyes. It seems that the sports world is returning to its centuries-old principles and traditions, while the political situation has turned out to be brief and meaningless," he continued.
The lawmaker suggested that after a while Western sports officials would retract their own decisions made in recent years and then "ask each other in surprise, 'what was all of that about?’"
