Azerbaijan supports Russia in situation with doping scandals

The final lists of Russian athletes who will go to the Olympics in Rio will be ready on the evening of July 27. The Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee decided not to suspend the entire Russian team from the 2016 Olympic Games, leaving the right to determine the names of athletes who will be able to perform at the Olympics to the international federations. At the same time, the athletes must meet a number of criteria, the main one of which is an unblemished doping record.

Few have supported Russia in the difficult situation it is undergoing due to the doping scandals. The Azerbaijani Minister of Youth and Sports Azad Rahimov was one of those who opposed collective responsibility.

"We worry together with Russia, because we have a long-standing, close and very friendly relations, we always support each other. I believe that there is no place for collective responsibility in sport. Pierre de Coubertin conceived the Olympic Games as a competition between individual athletes, only after the Olympic Games in Mexico did they come up with idea of doing batch calculations. A collective approach to athletes who have invested their lives, have spent the best years of their lives achieving results, to reach the summit of Mount Olympus, but today have been deprived of everything due to a problem that is not related to them personally, is unacceptable," Azad Rahimov told Vestnik Kavkaza.

Criticizing the IOC decision, the first vice-president of the Russian Wrestling Federation, two-time Olympic champion Arsen Fadzayev, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, responded to Azerbaijan, noting that it pays great attention to sport: "Azerbaijan has a very serious approach. Everywhere in the Caucasus they love wrestling – in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia."

Russian gymnast and four-time Olympic champion Alexei Nemov supported Fadzaev's point of view: "Azerbaijan has created proper conditions for the development of gymnastics. Athletes from other countries, including from Russia, visit it. Therefore Azerbaijani gymnastics is rising and developing."

Speaking about the development of gymnastics in the North Caucasus, Nemov said: "I think that they need to create conditions, build gyms. Then there will be stars. After all, we had them. The Olympic champion of 1996, my friend and colleague Dmitry Vasilenko, was born in Cherkessk. There are many good and talented guys in the Caucasus, who have been in the national team of both the Soviet Union and Russia. Therefore, it is necessary to create conditions for gymnastics in the Caucasus to prosper. I am ready to host travelling workshops in order to popularize sport. I believe that this is important."

But things are much better with wrestling in the region. "We have a lot of guys in Dagestan, Ossetia, Chechnya, Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, they perform at a decent level. These wrestlers are the backbone of the team now, both adult and youth teams. Everything is going fine and smoothly, all the coaches, federation heads and heads of the republics love sports. We hold competitions and rejoice in our successes," Arsen Fadzayev said.