by Kostas Onisenko
The Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, in his congratulatory message to the Russian athletes who returned from Tokyo, implied that they had uneven and unfair treatment, because of politics.
While he praised the fighting spirit and the performance of the athletes, he mentioned that “unfortunately, sports is not always separated from politics and we have seen it while watching the Olympic Games.
But no political obstacle could lower your results, which are obvious to professionals and all honest people, not to mention to the millions of our compatriots who were watching you anxiously all this time,” he said.
Patriarch Kirill pointed out that the Russian athletes deservedly represented their country and “despite the difficult conditions in which the games took place, they fought heroically for victory (…)”.
Many people in the Russian media these days, have expressed negatively about the judges at the Olympics as they believe that they were biased against Russian athletes because of “political differences”.