Russian fencers can enter the USA team through the back gate.
Stateside an interesting case is coming before the congress. The fencers who fled to the United States because of the Russian war of aggression Konstantin Lohanov, Sergei Bida and Violetta Bida hope to get the citizenship of their new country of residence quickly. That way, they would be able to participate in the US Olympic qualifiers and possibly make it to the competition team.
The US Olympic Committee and the country's fencing association have advocated for citizenship, but the matter will be considered by Congress. If the application is approved in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, it goes to the President Joe Biden to be signed.
The trio is in a hurry, because the qualifying competitions for the USA already started in July. According to the representative of the country's fencing association, the Russians are badly behind and probably won't be able to rise high enough in the ranking.
USA Today by however, they have a backdoor, as fencers for the team competition at the Olympics are named on a discretionary basis.
Sergei and Violetta Bida are a couple. Violetta is six months pregnant, so she is not aiming for a place in the competition. Sergei was the number one in the world ranking of fencing in 2019 and 2020. At the Olympic Games in Tokyo, he won silver in the team competition. Lohanov, on the other hand, is the junior world champion in fencing.
Russian newspaper Pravda reported at the end of December that the trio in question was wanted in Russia.
The fencers who left Russia have condemned the country's war of aggression.
“They started a war and they kill people because they think it's normal,” Lohanov said in an interview with USA Today.
#Fencing #Sports #stars #wanted #Russia #applying #citizenship #quickly
