Is Fair Play Possible?

The First All-Ukrainian Summer Sports Games are nearing conclusion. A tournament in women's gymnastics has also finished. We have already written about the convincing victory of the Kyiv-based Deriuhinas School in this competition. However, as for the word «convincing», there might be another opinion as well.

Several years back, the long-lasting Serebrianska-Deriuhina feud developed into a small scale sports war, in which all means were considered fair. Naturally, in such cases the odds are always in favor of those with power, those capable of radically affecting internal processes. And they do: at any tournament organized under Deriuhinas leadership, more than dubious situations arise from time to time, looking like a bacchanalia in the judging process.

«All the gymnasts participating in the final were split in two groups — a strong and a weak one,» says Liubov Serebrianska, Head Coach of the National Ukrainian Team, giving her impressions of the tournament. «Unfortunately, The First All-Ukrainian Summer Sports Games turned into a lynching of Crimean women athletes. And the State Sports Committee is letting all this go by. One might think that this country does not need these gymnasts. Isn't it a paradox that Olena Tkachenko receives the maximum possible score of ten in European championships, while in her own country she can reach only tenth place, without participating in any finals in individual contests? There was no place for her among the eight finalists either, although many of those reaching the final can hardly lay claims to high positions.»

Liubov Serebrianska intends to turn to the Olympic Charter and the International Gymnastics Federation and hopes that the discrimination against Crimean women athletes in Ukraine will be stopped, reports Yevhen HUREVYCH , special to The Day .