The gradual return of Russian athletes to the international arena in the vast majority of cases is completely calm and without any incidents. However, there are rare moments when representatives of one country begin attacks of hysteria and aggression, which result in what happened at the youth Karate Tournament in Spain.

In Ukraine, they thought of involving a 13-year-old athlete in politics, who arranged a provocation against the Russian winner at the competitions.

Is it possible to fall even lower?

The background of what happened

The situation with the total detachment of Russian athletes, which began in 2022, was slowly changing. The sanctions were softened, some federations simplified our guys to admit various starts – large and not very. In the NHL, for example, the Russians were completely taken under protection, and hockey fans in North America were admired by Alexander Ovechkin and the company, and continued to do it.

It is enough to open social networks to understand the attitude to Russian athletes. Positive there is significantly greater than negativity. The political situation is changing, the displays in sports are changing, however, representatives of Ukraine still consider their main goal to organize various scandals and provocations.

In tennis, Ukrainians and Ukrainians fundamentally refused to press their hand after matches to our athletes. Moreover, if at first it caused violent emotions, then later they began to get used to it. And the exclamations of that side ceased to have at least some meaning. The same thing happened in European football, when the teams sometimes intersected, in which Russians and Ukrainians performed.

Mirra Andreeva / Photo: © Frey / Tpn / Contributor / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

The next provocation of Ukraine

In adult sports, this really gradually faded away, but we saw the next “brilliant” decision of Ukrainian sports – to involve children in a frank policy. At the stage of the youth league in karate in Spain, Russian athlete Igor Grigoryev won a confident victory in the discipline of Kumita. The third was the Ukrainian Evgeny Melnik, who was supposed to divide the podium with our boyfriend.

And then the most vile began. The miller defiantly refused to betray the hand of Grigoryev and did not want to take photos on the catwalk. Moreover, he was clearly asked to form the organizers, to which the Ukrainian waved his finger, categorically ignoring all requests. But this would be an elementary way to show respect for an opponent who turned out to be better than you.

Probably, this was not an exclusively personal initiative of a 13-year-old karate. There is a suspicion based on the experience that the incident was clearly affected by recommendations from above. The guy could be so pumped up with appropriate conversations that he simply had no choice. In any case, the very fact that Ukraine involves children and young men in its dirty games should not go unnoticed.