Kornelija Dūdaitė, a member of the Lithuanian functional fitness national team, was banned from competing at the World Championships in Hungary after wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Make russia small again”.
Dūdaitė wore the T-shirt in response to Russian athletes being allowed to compete at the World Championships under a neutral flag.
“Everything happened very quickly. We, as representatives of Lithuania, went to this competition knowing that Russian athletes would take part. We were told that they would compete as neutrals. We have already experienced what it is like to have such ‘neutral’ Russian athletes,” Dūdaitė told LRT TV.
“I had this T-shirt, the same as the Ukrainian president wore, and I thought that if I needed to show our civic stance, then I would show it. When we arrived in Hungary, the organisers themselves congratulated the Russians on their participation on social media. I thought that was wrong. I do not think that an aggressor country can be congratulated at all,” she added.
The athlete said she wore the T-shirt and the Ukrainian flag after the Russians showed up with their country’s name on their uniforms at the competition parade.
“The organisers did not find this unacceptable, but my T-shirt was treated as a provocation. After the first event, the organisers came to me and asked me to change my outfit. If I didn’t, I was told that either I or the whole Lithuanian team would be eliminated. As I was not afraid or sorry to be eliminated, but I did not want the responsibility for my actions to fall on all the Lithuanian athletes, I told them that if they did not like my outfit, they had to officially eliminate me,” Dūdaitė explained.
After the Lithuanian athlete refused to take off the T-shirt and remove the photos of her wearing it, she was banned from the World Championships and escorted from the arena by security.
“This T-shirt shows which country I support. If Russians can wear a T-shirt with their country’s name on it, why can no one wear one with Ukraine’s name? Because there are no Ukrainian athletes here, there cannot even be Ukrainian athletes because they are on the front line,” Dūdaitė said.
“I am a citizen first, an athlete second. We can put sport somewhere on the side, but not values. This is my position,” she added.
Later, it was announced that the entire Lithuanian national team was withdrawing from the competition.
“The Lithuanian Functional Fitness Federation has decided to withdraw from the World Championships in Budapest (Hungary) due to the negligent attitude of the organisers towards the ‘neutral flag’ policy,” the federation said in a statement.
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