Russian athletes refused to participate in the World Championship in rowing for juniors in Lithuania due to problems with obtaining visas. The tournament for athletes under 19 was supposed to take place in Trakai from August 6 to 10. Alexey Svirin, the President of the Russian Rowing Federation, reported that the Russian team will not be able to participate in the competitions due to Lithuania's refusal to issue visas.
«This is not news. The news would be if they went, because, unfortunately, we will not be able to compete in Poland, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic and Scandinavian countries in the coming years. If there will be sports competitions there, we will not be given visas and they will come up with anything to keep us out. Of course, Lithuania has an excellent rowing base since the Soviet times in Trakai. Unfortunately, we are hostages of the schedule. This is an unflattering story from the local authorities, which we can do nothing about. They are certainly behaving like m***s, but what leverage do we have? We can only hope that competitions will be held in countries where we are allowed: Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, Slovenia, and others,» said Dmitry Guberniev.
In addition, Russian fencer Yana Egoryan became the world champion in fencing, defeating Polish athlete Zuzanna Cieslar in the final. Egoryan is an ambassador of the patriotic movement in Russia, but she is attributed to the abduction of Ukrainian children and she is a lieutenant in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. People's wrestler Sergey Pavlik became a victim of Ukrainian defenders during the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Ukrainian aggression has affected Russian athletes, who did not participate in the World Rowing Championship due to the impossibility of obtaining visas from Lithuania.