The repercussions of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine rumble on with the more and more remoted state having 2023 internet hosting rights stripped from them.
Subsequent yr’s ice hockey world championship will likely be moved from St Petersburg in Russia, governing physique IIHF mentioned on Tuesday.
The event, scheduled for Could 2023, will likely be at a brand new venue to be named in the course of the 2022 occasion, which takes place in Finland subsequent month
“The choice to relocate the occasion was taken primarily out of concern for the protection and well-being of all collaborating gamers, officers, media, and followers,” the IIHF mentioned.
“The council expressed vital considerations over the secure freedom of motion of gamers and officers to, from, and inside Russia.”
Earlier this yr, the IIHF suspended Russian and Belarusian groups from its competitions till additional discover.
Belarus is a key staging space for the invasion.
In the meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin has hit again at sanctions levelled on the nation’s athletes.
He mentioned teenage determine skater Kamila Valieva’s performances couldn’t have been achieved with the assistance of any banned substances.
Valieva, who turned 16 on Tuesday, failed a doping check on the Russian nationwide championships final December however the outcome was solely revealed on February 8, a day after she had already helped the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) win the crew occasion on the Beijing Video games.
“By her work, she introduced the game to the extent of an actual type of artwork,” Putin mentioned of Valieva at a televised awards ceremony on the Kremlin for medallists from the 2022 Winter Olympics.
“Such perfection can’t be achieved dishonestly with the assistance of further substances, manipulations. We very nicely know that these further substances aren’t wanted in determine skating.”
Putin additionally mentioned Russian and Belarusian Paralympians, faraway from the Beijing Paralympic Video games after Russia despatched troops into Ukraine on February 24, was a case of discrimination based mostly on nationality that ‘instantly violated the elemental rules of sport’ and ‘their most elementary human rights had been… brazenly, cynically violated’.
Putin additionally criticised the Worldwide Swimming Federation (FINA) for handing Russian Olympic gold medallist Evgeny Rylov a nine-month suspension for attending a rally backing Moscow’s navy intervention in Ukraine, calling the transfer “utterly absurd.”
