Putin’s Olympic poster girl flees as military draft prompts thousands to cross border
A RUSSIAN synchronised swimming champion who carried the flag at the 2012 London Olympics has become the most prominent athlete to flee the country since the start of the Ukrainian invasion.
Anastasia Davydova, a 13-time world champion who serves as secretary general of Russia’s Olympic Committee (ROC), said in a letter that she had left the country for good as hundreds of thousands fled the military draft.
The departure of the 39-year-old, who was feted by president Vladimir Putin, was reported on Tuesday by state-controlled Match TV.
Russia’s Synchronised Swimming Federation said it was unaware of the athlete’s whereabouts while the ROC said it had not received a letter of resignation from her.
Three years ago the retired athlete, who won Olympic gold in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008, hosted Mr Putin at her synchronised swimming school in Moscow.
Several leading athletes have publicly spoken out against the invasion of Ukraine but Davydova, who was decorated with an Order of Merit by Mr Putin, is by far the biggest Russian sporting star to have broken ties with the Kremlin.
Yesterday Roman Teryushkov, a former minister, condemned her as a traitor. “There will be other people to replace her – those who love their country, who are proud of it and ready to fight till the bitter end to protect its integrity and sovereignty,” he said. While Tatyana Tarasova, a figure-skating coach said: “Russian sports needs to think about why she left – people don’t flee from good things.”
North Ossetia has now imposed restrictions on cars arriving at the border with Georgia, which allows Russians to stay without a visa for a year.
Officials said they would set up a draft office to issue papers to reservists barred from leaving Russia under the mobilisation order after 20,000 people crossed the border in two days.
While Moscow has admitted some mistakes in its selection of reservists, Marat Usmanov, chief military draft officer in Altay, said they had only got themselves to blame as they “failed to comply with their obligations keep their military records up to date”.