In Russia, the Olympics aren’t being shown on TV and some politicians and media figures have even described those willing to compete in Paris as traitors. It’s a complex environment for the athletes, some of them teenagers, to navigate and they’re wary of talking about politics or the war.
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00:0015 Russian athletes competing at this year's Olympics have an uneasy status as individual
00:05neutral athletes.
00:07Some in the Olympic village oppose them taking part and Russian opinion is divided, with
00:12some Russian politicians describing those competing as traitors.
00:18Activists gathered information from Russian athletes' social media leading up to the
00:21Games, flagging posts they considered showed support for the war.
00:25One of these was allegedly Diana Schneider, who became one of the first Russians to win
00:29a medal at the Paris Olympics after taking silver in women's doubles.
00:34You published in February 2022 two posts on, you liked two posts on Instagram.
00:39I'm not going to answer anything about politics here.
00:43OK, my question was only do you regret it and your position has changed or not?
00:49No, no comments about it.
00:51I'm here to talk about tennis and my game today.
00:55Ukraine wanted Russian athletes excluded and opposed Olympic efforts to include them
00:59as neutral athletes.
01:03Ukraine briefly boycotted Olympic qualifying competitions that allowed Russians to attend
01:08but changed their policy, facing the risk of not being represented at the Olympics at
01:12all.
01:13We all know very well where these athletes are from and they didn't say a word against
01:20the war.
01:22So I think it's very sad because the Olympics are about peace and all wars were stopped
01:31for a period.
01:32But Russia didn't stop and during these Games there were mass attacks on the cities of
01:38Ukraine.
01:39So how can a terrorist be allowed to participate in peace competitions?