As the resource “Insidethegames” reported on May 29, the World Taekwondo Federation is investigating the Taekwondo Union of Russia for illegal “recognition” by the Union of the “regional federation in Crimea” as one of the “members of the union”.
This investigation comes against the backdrop of the ongoing World Taekwondo Championships in Baku, with the World Taekwondo saying it “will not comment further until this process [investigation] is complete” and that it insists that so-called “neutral athletes from Russia and Belarus” at the World Championships “did not take an active part in hostilities”.
At the same time, the World Taekwondo is among the international federations that supported the IOC’s manipulative appeal, it allowed “Russian and Belarusian athletes” to perform “as neutral” at the World Championships in Baku, provided that they do not support the war in Ukraine and are not associated with armed forces.
It should be noted that the aggressor-controlled “Crimean” illegal “taekwondo federation” is “headed” by a collaborator, the “president of the federation” Eskender Vagapov, and it, along with this figure, is at least mentioned on the website of the Taekwondo Union of Russia.
Let us recall that after the above-pointed January statements by the IOC, our Association applied in writing to all international sports associations with a demand to check all “neutral Russian athletes” for their relationship to the criminal occupation of Crimea.
Also ARC expert Boris Babin pointed at the OSCE Human Dimension Supplementary Meeting in Vienna, to the persecution by the Russian invaders of Crimean taekwondo coaches, political prisoners Teymur and Uzeyir Abdullayevs.
