More than 200 Russian athletes changed their flag to pursue a career, says website

More of 200 athletes from Russia changed or tried to change their nationality to pursue a career, after the sanctions imposed on the country’s sport, first due to doping scandals and later due to the war in Ukraine, according to the independent Russian website “Holod” published this Thursday.

“After analyzing announcements about changing sports citizenship, open data on competition participants and the open records of sports federations, “Holod” counted 204 athletes who changed or intend to change sports citizenship”, indicated the publication.

“Holod” indicated that among these athletes there are renowned professionals, European or world champions in their specialties, as well as other very young athletes, for whom “renouncing Russian citizenship is the only way out to save their careers”.

The country’s chess players are the ones who changed their citizenship the most in the last two years, totaling 141.

Most of them do not make the decision public, which ends up being known during the competitions, informed the “Holod”.

Russia still suffered the loss of 11 skaters, 11 horsemen or amazons, five jinnasts and five tennis players, as well as four football players and four representatives of athletics.
In 16 other sports, Russia lost from one to four athletes.

The country that received the most Russians was Israel, which has 25 Russians, followed by Serbia, with 19, Germany, with 13, and France, with 12.

The “Holod”, however, admits that the real number of Russians who changed flags could be much higher, since there are several young people who are little known or who participate in sports with little diffusion.