Dhe Russian gymnasts had a grand performance on Wednesday night, honoring Russian soldiers in general and Joseph Stalin in particular. Irina Viner, President of the All-Russian Federation of Rhythmic Gymnastics, as head coach of the national team, mistress of many dozens of medal winners and the most influential person in her sport in recent decades, held a gala on the occasion of the day at the Irina Viner Usmanova Gymnastics Palace near Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium of the Defender of the Fatherland on Thursday. The holiday honors the soldiers of the Russian army, those of the past and those of today, who have been unleashing aggressive warfare on Ukraine for the past year.
Even the rehearsals of the Viner Gala in the Viner Usmanova Palace – the building still bears her old name, from the 30 years of her marriage to the billionaire and longtime president and financier of the International Fencing Federation, Alisher Usmanov – had made headlines: a video leak As far as you want to talk about leaks, because the rehearsal film was published on the Instagram account of the Irina Viner Gymnastics Center. It showed men and women in uniform marching to the song “Gunners, Stalin gave the order!” conducted by Irina Viner.
In addition to several bands and orchestras, the gymnasts of the national team also performed at the gala, and the Russian soldiers were also honored by the presence of the Averina twins and Lala Karamarenko. The latter is European champion, Dina Awerina won the Olympic silver medal in singles in Tokyo 2021 – which director Irina Viner understood at the time as a remarkable defeat and an expression of the now anti-Russian policy of the International Gymnastics Federation.
The “Z” symbol on the jackets
Three months after the Tokyo defeat, Viner hired Ira Vigdorchik, the coach of Israeli Olympic champion Linoy Ashram, to coach the Russian team. Another three months later, Vladimir Putin’s troops unleashed their war of aggression against Ukraine, and Dina and Arina Averina, five-time world champions, found themselves, along with scores of other athletes, soon after, in March 2022, with the “Z” symbol on their jackets at the stage in the Luschniki Stadium again to exploit the invasion of the neighboring country with the Russian President for propaganda purposes.
Grande Dame of rhythmic gymnastics: Irina Viner
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Image: picture alliance / Russian Look
The director, who was awarded the Olympic Order in Silver by Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), for her services in gymnastics in 2015, expressed her satisfaction after the gala on Wednesday. Irina Viner is quoted by the Tass agency as saying that international criticism expressed in advance, such as through the “Inside The Games” portal, was permeated by “falsifications”. That the International Gymnastics Federation was contacted for a reaction – outrageous.
“For our mothers, for our fatherland!”
“They wanted a reaction to Viner commanding a parade to the song ‘Gunners, Stalin Gave the Order.’ Yes, he gave the order. For our mothers, for our fatherland! You saw children singing it, and I’m very happy.” Furthermore, of course, there was no militarism to be seen in your gala, nor did the evening have anything to do with the war against the Ukrainian neighbors – after all, you already had in the Conducted such an event on the same date last year, and at that time there was no “special operation” whatsoever.
In fact, Putin let the 2022 holiday pass before ordering gunners to shell Ukraine and roll the tanks towards Kiev. On the anniversary of the invasion, which according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Sports claimed the lives of 243 Ukrainian athletes, the Minister of Sports of Ukraine, Vadym Hutzait, met his counterparts from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Poland’s National Olympic Committee and 40 national sports federations were also represented in Kiev to discuss how the reintegration of Russian and Belarusian athletes as “neutral athletes”, as sought by Bach and the IOC, can be prevented.
