The confessions of the 2024 world champion Svetlana Chernigovskaya added fuel to the fire after an incident of insults from a sports functionary against one of the leaders of the national team canoeist Olesya Romasenko, when he called her “worthless” and personally “unpleasant” to him. She spoke about the humiliation to which Arkhipov subjected her, who compared the athlete’s attitude towards rowing with her love for LGBT people. “I would call what is happening bullying… “Do you know what LGBT is?” – the president of the federation asks me. I look at him and say, I don’t know. “So you love rowing. You are for LGBT, that means!..” After that, I could no longer withstand the pressure and began to cry… It is impossible to fight with the leadership of our federation. Everything depends only on them. Roughly speaking, they will tell you – walk naked through the canal, then we will send you to the World Cup… Yes, we won, but only I, my partner and close people probably know what we had to go through. This is the case when gold, in spite of, through thorns, reaches the stars,” the athlete told reporters. According to her, the country’s national team went to the World Championships even without massage therapists and doctors, which surprised representatives of the Belarusian and other national teams. 
As stated in the letter from Artem Kiryanov, the specialized federation not only prevented the holding of the popular AAA CUP rowing tournament in the Russian Federation, which was held simultaneously with the Olympic Games in Paris, but also “called on the carpet” the strongest athletes of the country who took part in it, not allowing some of Among them is the World Championship held in Uzbekistan. For example, according to the parliamentarian, the country’s strongest kayakers in the 500 m double team, Roman Anoshkin and Vlad Litovka, were removed from the list of World Cup participants, despite the fact that they won the qualifying competitions. Both athletes were given a dressing down at the presidium meeting, forcing them to first leave their phones, watches – anything that could record sound. “Nobody listened to our arguments; rather, they even laughed in our faces. Apparently, according to the leaders of the federation, Roma and I are also worthless athletes,” said Vlad Litovka.
This behavior of a sports functionary caused justifiable indignation among many honored figures of the country, raising the question not only about the ethical side of the matter, but also about the business qualities of the head of the sports federation, under which this sport began to lose popularity in the country and ceased to be successful against the backdrop of numerous scandals. According to a State Duma deputy, athletes complain about the constantly changing conditions for selecting participants for international competitions, about the opacity of decisions on the part of the federation leaders, which prevents rowers from approaching the main starts of the season in the best sports shape.
As Deputy Kiryanov notes in his request, it is extremely unacceptable when the head of a sports federation allows himself to publicly insult and humiliate athletes, to demonstrate that their participation in international competitions does not depend on the results they achieve, but on obediently following the instructions of sports functionaries and showing loyalty to officials . According to the parliamentarian, such a situation requires immediate intervention from the leadership of the Ministry of Sports, since not only the attitude towards leading canoeists and kayakers is at stake, but also the prospects of the entire sport, in which Russia has always previously been in a leading position.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
