Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided not to attend the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The Russian flag was raised without him in the Olympic village. The ceremony was attended by the President of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), Alexander Zhukov, the Honorary IOC member and Honorary President of the ROC, Vitaly Smirnov, the IOC members Alexander Popov and Shamil Tarpishchev, the head of the Russian delegation at the 2016 Games, Igor Kazik, as well as the athletes and coaches of the Russian Olympic team. According to Zhukov, the Russian national team in various sports (271 athletes) received the approval of the independent commission of the International Olympic Committee.
Not everyone went to the Olympics. On July 18th an Independent Commission of WADA announced the results of the investigation into violations of anti-doping rules in Sochi and recommended that the IOC suspend the national team of Russia from the 2016 Olympics. However, the IOC did not suspend the entire Russian team from the Olympics and decided to allow those athletes whose candidatures would be approved by the international federations that supervise the respective sports.
"For me, as a witness of the attempts to disrupt the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980, 36 years ago, it is quite clear that there is a purely political component," the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, commented on the situation around the Russian Olympic team.
‘’The Winter Olympics in Sochi – all the leaders just did not come. Usually everyone goes – it is a holiday, including the opportunity to meet with the leaders of foreign countries,’’ Zhirinovsky recalled the 2014 Olympics.
Zhirinovsky has ideas for the Olympic venues. "Let's chose Greece as a permanent venue for the Summer Olympic Games. Always. This will benefit Greece, well, let it be. Everyone will know the stadiums, showers, the area and the route. Athens is at the center of the Earth, it takes 8 hours to fly from America and from Japan.
Zhirinovsky does not like the choice of Rio de Janeiro as the venue for the 2016 Olympics. "What does the whole planet go to Brazil? There is a different atmospheric pressure, a different time, everything else is different there.’’
The LDPR leader chose a permanent venue for the Winter Olympics as well, although not ‘unequivocally’, but he proposed two options: ‘’For the winter games, please, Austria. Salzburg always hosted the Winter Olympics well. Or at ours, in Sochi. It was also good there. The training facilities and food – everything is well known.’’
