The champion of Asia, and more recently the world champion in arm wrestling Kristina Boldyreva, after the scandal at the World Championship in Romania, will no longer perform under the flag of Kyrgyzstan. About what made her take such a step, the athlete told in her Instagram.

Asian champion in arm wrestling after the scandal does not want to compete under the flag of Kyrgyzstan

What happened?

At the World Armwrestling Championship in Bucharest, which took place from November 24 to December 3, Boldyreva received a gold medal in the senior category in the weight of 65 kg (left hand).

But, according to her, during the award ceremony, Boldyreva found herself on a podium without the flag of Kyrgyzstan. The representative of the Kyrgyz delegation named Zheenbek Battalovich, who had the flag of the republic, did not go on stage with the athlete, although, according to her, he always proudly stands at the awards ceremony with the winners. And at the most solemn moment, instead of the flag, she had in her hands only a certificate confirming the receipt of the gold medal of the World Championship in her category.

The day after the victory, Boldyreva was supposed to compete in the senior category in her weight category, fight for gold with her right hand. However, this did not happen: the athlete was removed from the competition at the last moment under the pretext that she had citizenship not of Kyrgyzstan, but of Russia. Previously, Boldyreva had already competed for Kyrgyzstan within the framework of the republic and Asia, and she was not removed from the competition for this reason. But now she was notified that they were forced to remove the athlete from the final fights.

According to her, Jeenbek Battalovich was not present at the scene of disputes, and did not defend the athlete's right to compete at the World Championships. Even representatives of the rival teams spoke out in her defense and support, but they could not return the girl to the list of participants. In addition, the organizing committee told Boldyreva that allegedly it was Jeenbek Battalovich who was one of the initiators of the fact that a Russian citizen from his team was not allowed to play for Kyrgyzstan. She was told: He did not know that you had Russian citizenship, and he does not need problems.

“I was forbidden to speak at this Championship on the right hand. It’s good that at least they didn’t lose the medal on the left, ”the champion wrote bitterly.

In addition, Boldyreva in her post stated that the Kyrgyz armwrestling team is practically self-financing by athletes. And even T-shirts for performances before the recent Asian Championships they had to buy themselves from our Federation for 500 soms.

“We were not given a single som either for Asia [Asia Championship] or for the World. For some reason, we even paid the annual membership fee for our country's participation in the WAF [World Armwrestling Federation]! Just divided 300 € for 6 people and that's it! And when I raised the issue of financing at the meeting, Jeenbek Battalovich rudely threatened that he would give me problems if I went to the State Committee for Sports to find out. she said. “[…] To my great regret and disappointment, I will no longer be able to perform and represent Kyrgyzstan at any international competitions.”

So far, there have been no official comments and statements from the Armwrestling Federation or the State Agency for Youth Affairs, Physical Culture and Sports on this matter.

Who is Jeenbek Battalovich?

The “Jeenbek Battalovich” Boldyreva is talking about in her post is Jeenbek Mukambetov. The difference in the spelling of the name is due to the fact that, according to the rules of the Kyrgyz and Russian languages, it is different. Jeenbek Mukambetov stood at the origins of the Kyrgyz National Armwrestling Federation, which appeared in 1997 and headed it for more than ten years.

He also successfully performed as an athlete at national and international competitions. Mukambetov has been the president of the Asian Armwrestling Federation for many years, and is also known as a mentor to Kyrgyz armwrestlers. According to the Kyrgyz Ministry of Justice, Mukambetov is also listed as a co-founder of the public association Asian Armsport Federation, and also manages it.

It is noteworthy that the State Agency for Youth Affairs, Physical Culture and Sports published a post on its Instagram dedicated to the victories of Kyrgyzstan at the World Championship, which Boldyreva wrote about. It contains videos and photos from the award ceremony of two world champions in arm wrestling, representing the country. It can be seen that in the video where Boldyreva is awarded, she really was left without a flag, and ended up on stage without any accompaniment. In the photo, which shows the Kyrgyz world champion in the “master” category (over 40 years old) Elena Taratorina, she has the flag of Kyrgyzstan in her hands. She is not alone on the stage: Mukambetov is standing behind her.

Has this already happened?

According to News-Asia, this is the second case in Kyrgyz armwrestling that has become known to the public, in which gold at the World Championship, the absence of the flag of Kyrgyzstan when awarding the champion, and the name of Jeenbek Mukambetov appear next to each other. A similar story was told by Russian para-athlete Irina Vertinskaya in an interview with Match-TV in 2016.

She used to live in Kyrgyzstan, she was a citizen of the republic. For several years of playing sports, Vertinskaya became the champion of Kyrgyzstan and twice the champion of Asia, and in 2009 she performed under the flag of Kyrgyzstan at the Para-armwrestling World Championship in Italy. The arm wrestler won the gold medal.But, according to her in an interview with Match-TV, the flag of the republic in order to get up with him during the award, she was not given-this was done by the director of the Kyrgyz National Armrestling Federation. In an interview, she did not give the name and surname of a sports official directly, but at that time the KNFA headed just mukukube. It was he who, after the victory of Vertinskaya and two more athletes at the 2009 World Cup, told reporters about her as the head of the federation.

Vertinskaya decided for herself that after that she would not play for the republic. Soon after the World Cup, she had to leave the country. In Kyrgyzstan, the April Revolution of 2010 took place, after which the girl was left without work. It was not to live on disability pension, she did not see the prospects in Kyrgyzstan, and, having sold the little valuable that she had, Vertinskaya left for Russia. After it was possible to solve problems with the residence permit, work, citizenship and disability already in Russia, she returned to sports. But in another discipline: a pusher of the nucleus, the throttle of the disk and spear.

According to the Paralympic Committee of Russia, the athlete brought the country a number of gold and silver medals, as well as bronze in several years. In 2021, Vertinskaya performed in Tokyo at the Paralympics-2020 under the Russian flag in the discipline Pushing the nucleus.