President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, former Minister of Youth and Sports (2020-2023) Vadym Gutzait reported on the punishment that may await the silver medalist of the 2024 Olympics in artistic gymnastics, Ilya Kovtun, who decided to change his Ukrainian sports citizenship to Croatian.
He stated this in an interview with Apostrophe.
He noted that there have never been cases where Olympic champions have left for competitions and not returned.
"There is one case where Ilya Kovtun decided to change his citizenship after the Olympics. Unfortunately, he and his coach stayed in Croatia. As far as I know, they decided to change their citizenship," he recalled.
The sanctions that the National Olympic Committee may impose will apply at least to the scholarships awarded.
"They will probably take away all the scholarships that the president has assigned, and then they will look at it," Gutzeit added.
As is known, in February 2022, the Cherkasy gymnast Ilya Kovtun and his coach were also included in the list of scholarship recipients. This decision was made after he became the bronze medalist of the World Artistic Gymnastics Championship the previous year. At that time, the reward was 11 subsistence minimums.
As "Apostrophe" wrote, previously, former advisor to the Minister of Youth and Sports Pavlo Bulhak stated that Ukrainian gymnast Ilya Kovtun, who decided to change his sports citizenship, and his coach must return the money allocated by the state .