Gymnast Kovtun comments on his decision to change his sports citizenship for the first time
15 April 16:53
Gymnast Ilya Kovtun, who won a silver medal for Ukraine at the 2024 Olympics, explained why he decided to change his sports citizenship.
He told about it in an interview with the Croatian edition of Glas Slavonije, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
According to him, the process of obtaining citizenship is still ongoing, so he does not yet know when he will be allowed to compete under the Croatian flag. However, the athlete assumes that this will happen next year.
He did not name a specific moment when he decided to change his citizenship, saying only that it was “like snow coming down the mountain – first a small lump and then getting bigger.”
“And it was not just the war in Ukraine. There were many reasons that led me to this decision. […] Here (in Croatia – ed.) I was accepted as a native – I practically lived with them, slept, trained, ate at Sokol. When I won the Olympic medal, it seemed to me that people here were more excited than at home in Ukraine,” Kovtun says.
He also commented on the condemnation he faced after his decision. According to him, people in Ukraine “have much more important concerns now.”
“I was a little sad on the first day when I saw what they wrote to me on Instagram, but then I said: “Well, write what you want”. I think this is a normal reaction. There’s a war in Ukraine, people have bigger problems, and because of that, they’ve become quite aggressive, because it’s not easy to live under stress all the time when you can lose your life every day,” the athlete said, adding that he also received support.
He also said that his father and sister have been living in Poland for a long time, and his mother will soon move there as well. He himself has not been to Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale war.
It should be noted that the media has long reported that Kovtun is considering changing his sports citizenship. After that, the Ministry of Sports initiated a conversation with the gymnast’s coach.
And in January, Croatia announced that the athlete would change his sports citizenship. The president of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, Vadym Gutzeit, expressed disappointment with Kovtun’s decision, saying that it meant that “you don’t want to be Ukrainians.”
What we know about Ilya Kovtun
The 21-year-old gymnast was born in Cherkasy. This year he became a silver medalist at the Olympic Games. He is also a bronze medalist at the World and European All-Around Championships, a medalist at the World Junior Championships, a six-time European Junior Champion, a medalist at the European Junior Championships, and a multiple champion and medalist at the European Youth Olympic Festival.
In 2021, the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) approved a new element named after Kovtun, who performed it at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup.
Ilya Kovtun is an Honored Master of Sports of Ukraine.
