TOKYO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd July, 2021) The Russian national gymnastics team will not attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Valentina Rodionenko, the senior coach of the team, told Sputnik on Thursday.
The opening ceremony of the global sports event is scheduled for this Friday, with a maximum of 950 guests allowed to attend it under a state of COVID-19 emergency.
"No, we will not go to the opening ceremony as usual. It makes no sense for us to go there," Rodionenko said.
The Russian delegation at the ceremony will include between 66-80 members, according to Stanislav Pozdnyakov, the president of the Russian Olympic Committee.
Competitions in gymnastics at the Olympics are scheduled to start on Saturday.
The Olympics will be held until August 8, with stringent restrictions put in place to prevent the coronavirus spread, including the lack of spectators on nearly all Olympic venues.
Russian teams will participate in the competitions on a neutral basis, that is, without the national flag and hymn, which is a part of the December 2020 ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, banning Russian athletes from performing in major sports events under the national flag until 2022 over the alleged violation of the world anti-doping code. The issue is dating back to the Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi in 2014.
