Cypriot Gymnast with Russian Roots Earns Olympic Spot and Faces Backlash

A scandal is unfolding around a Russian gymnast who is currently competing for the Republic of Cyprus at the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Young athlete Vera Tugolukova secured her ticket to the quadrennial event, but her right to compete is being challenged by the Polish sports federation.

Several leading sports publications, including Sportbox, have highlighted the controversy surrounding the Olympic qualification of Russian gymnast Vera Tugolukova. The 15-year-old athlete has had successful performances at domestic artistic gymnastics tournaments. In February 2022, she won several medals at the Russian Championships, and in August of the same year, she clinched four medals at the "Children of Asia" sports games.

However, in November of last year, the young gymnast decided to change her sporting citizenship and compete for the Republic of Cyprus. Concurrently, she continued to train for competitions in Russia. This year, the athlete earned her first opportunity to qualify for the Olympics.

The final Olympic spot was determined at the European Championships in Budapest. To represent Cyprus at the Olympics, the Russian athlete needed to achieve the best result in the qualification, based on the sum of four exercises among all contenders.

The primary favorite of the tournament was Liliana Levinska from Poland, a two-time junior world champion in 2023. Before the final event, the Polish athlete was leading by a margin of 0.6 points. However, Vera Tugolukova managed to snatch victory by 0.25 points in the sum of four exercises, surpassing her opponent.

Thanks to this success, the gymnast of Russian origin became the seventh representative of Cyprus at the upcoming Olympics in Paris.

"The Cyprus Olympic Committee (COC) warmly congratulates Vera Tugolukova, the president of the Cyprus Gymnastics Federation Savva Mats, as well as her coaches Kristallini Trikomiti and Natalia Sokolova on qualifying for the Olympic Games and their great success in this sport," the COC said in a press release.

However, the girl's victory was marred by controversy: the Polish sports federation, dissatisfied with the defeat of its compatriot, accused the judges of bias and raised concerns about the gymnast's ties to Russia.

In particular, the dissatisfaction of Polish sports officials was caused by the fact that the head of the judging panel was the experienced Cypriot Evangelia Trikomiti, who has experience officiating at the highest level competitions.

As noted by Sportbox, there is an opportunity to combat unfair judging in artistic gymnastics by blocking overly inflated or deflated scores. The Polish side pointed out that Liliana Levinska had many scores blocked, while Vera Tugolukova did not.

As a result, a real battle unfolded for the last Olympic spot won by a Russian gymnast representing Cyprus.

Polish sports officials managed to pressure the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) to refrain from announcing the recipient of the coveted license for now. Additionally, they filed a complaint about the results of the competition in Budapest.

The publication notes that in Poland, they hope that FIG will violate the rules and grant a wild card to Liliana Levinska. According to the regulations, this possibility is provided for those athletes who participated in last year's World Championships. However, the Polish athlete did not participate in those events due to her young age.