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Ivan Litvinovich displaying his gold medla© AFP
Ivan Litvinovich from Belarus on Friday turned the primary athlete competing as a impartial on the Paris Olympics to win gold — but it surely won’t seem within the official medals desk. The 23-year-old retained his title within the males’s trampoline remaining, with China’s Wang Zisai and Yan Langyu taking silver and bronze. Athletes from Russia and ally Belarus are competing underneath a impartial banner after being banned from world sport following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) has overseen their gradual return underneath a impartial banner and underneath strict circumstances.
To be invited to the Video games, “impartial particular person athletes” who achieved ok outcomes to qualify needed to move a double test.
Worldwide sports activities federations and the IOC verified that the opponents didn’t actively help the battle in Ukraine or have any hyperlinks with their international locations’ armies.
They weren’t allowed to participate within the opening ceremony or compete underneath their nationwide flags.
If athletes make the rostrum, their achievements should not recognised within the medals desk.
Solely 15 Russians and 17 Belarusians accepted the invitation to compete underneath the impartial banner.
As an alternative of Litvinovich listening to the Belarusian nationwide anthem after receiving his medal, a generic tune with no phrases commissioned by the IOC was performed instead.
“What’s there to say? It is completely different. Our anthem is best and I hope we’ll be capable of take part in competitions listening it,” he informed reporters.
Litvinovich declined to reply when requested about his presence on the Video games, notably in relation to the “help for his nation” he had expressed beforehand.
“I do not wish to reply these questions. You ask these questions to impress me. I’ll solely reply questions on sport,” he stated.
Earlier within the day, Viyaleta Bardzilouskaya from Belarus gained the primary medal of any type by a impartial athlete on the Paris Video games, taking silver within the girls’s trampoline.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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