Mignews reports (in Russian), that the organizers of the Gugl Intersport international championship in athletics in Lintz, have asked from a defending European champion in pole jumping, Alexander Averbukh, not to come.
Their lame excuse was, that they cannot guarantee an sufficient security for an Israeli representative.
Alexander is entitled by every right to participate in this commercial competition. Moreover, by being a professional sportsman, this is his main, if not only, source of income.
The commentator on Mignews, has rightly noticed, that if they cannot provide sufficient security, then they should cancel the whole championship. As for the Austrian government, they should decide, who runs the country, they or the terrorists.
On my behalf I want to add, that I haven't found a tiniest notice about this in English anywhere on the web, which falls into the well known pattern.
Update:
As I've learnt today from the "Israeli" newspaper (yes, it is the newspaper's title), the organizers have reconsidered and decided to withdraw their request.
The excuse they have used in their initial statement was that they didn't want to cover the expenses for the security of Israeli representative.
Now it is up to A. Averbukh to decide, whether he still wants to participate.
1 comment:
Disgraceful. As always.
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