The Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation is discussing measures to be taken against judges who underrated the performance of the Azerbaijani gymnasts with five ribbons in group exercises in rhythmic gymnastics within the framework of the First European Games, the Vice President of the Azerbaijani Gymnastics Federation, Altay Hasanov, told Vestnik Kavkaza. Sabina Abbasova, Aynur Mustafayeva, Siyana Vasileva, Diana Doman and Alexandra Platonova received only 16.7 points and came eighth, losing the opportunity to fight for a medal in the finals on Sunday.
"We've seen biased refereeing in the rhythmic gymnastics for a number of years. We are struggling with this by any legal means: we are filing protests, making statements in the press, writing letters to the management of the European Federation. But, unfortunately, nothing serious happens. The subjectivity of judging is going on," Altay Hasanov said.
The Vice President of the Azerbaijani Gymnastics Federation said that he has a feeling that some forces govern these processes. "There is no progress in gymnastics, because countries, in particular Azerbaijan, which do everything possible to create conditions for the development and promotion of the sport, get understated estimates at major international tournaments," he noted with regret.
"We are watching, and this can be seen with the naked eye, how the countries that are not performing very well somehow get higher scores than the team of Azerbaijan, which did not make any mistakes and performed at a high level in the first exercise with five ribbons," the vice-president of the Federation noted.
"The management of the Federation is discussing the measures we will take. We were hoping for the goodwill of the judges, that they will judge objectively. Unfortunately, this did not happen, so we are thinking about how to dispute these actions of the judges. We will talk with the International Law Firm on this matter. There should not be any emotions, emotions are for the fans, who also understand that this is, unfortunately, not the first time. It is felt that they do it with our team willfully, although independent experts say that it is wrong in relation to Azerbaijan," he said.
"We have plenty of evidence for this. There are videos on Youtube, there are many other facts, so we want to do it within the law – to show that these people are unworthy to judge such competitions. They must be punished," Altay Hasanov concluded.
