Gymnastics - Artistic Discussion | Qualification to Summer Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 Road to LA 2028

[BruT06 50]

Ukrainian gymnast and silver olympic medallist from Paris + 2x 4th from Paris Illia Kovtun have requested Croatian citizenship. Now he is waiting approval from Ukrainian association or one year of without official competitions. He trains in Osijek,Croatia for some years.

In addition,European championships 2026 will be in Zagreb in August. Most probably,it will be his first competition for Croatia (if he won't be able to compete at the 2025 worlds).

We could say that Croatian men team with him and Tin Srbić (high bar silver from 2021 Olympics and ex world champion) and Aurel Benović (vault olympic 5th from 2024) will be very strong. Btw,Srbić and Benović were injured for these European championships. Benović won the world cup in Osijek and he is making even higher difficulty jump then in Paris and Osijek to become the new world champion.🇭🇷💪😏

Edited June 9, 2025 by BruT06

[copravolley 639]

It probably won't be received too well in Ukraine, especially since their gymnastics is going through a great period and they probably have good conditions for training. However, it's not a well-known sport and person to cause a big scandal.

[Illya 590]

12 hours ago, copravolley said:

It probably won't be received too well in Ukraine, especially since their gymnastics is going through a great period and they probably have good conditions for training. However, it's not a well-known sport and person to cause a big scandal.

Is the last sentence about Ukraine? If yes, then you are wrong, because we knew this information from the end of 2024 and it was the #1 topic in Ukrainian news for a while, Kovtun received a lot of hate and deleted all of his posts, related to Ukraine 

[heywoodu 16,459]

Ugh, what's with athletes receiving actual hate when they make a choice for their nationality? Especially if he had trained there for years, it's just not that weird to compete for them..

[JoshMartini007 2,860]

21 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Ugh, what's with athletes receiving actual hate when they make a choice for their nationality? Especially if he had trained there for years, it's just not that weird to compete for them..

Tribalism unfortunately. You see it at the club level too, but not so much because it's usually the manager or owner being the cause of the transfer/trade and not the athletes themselves

[BruT06 50]

2 hours ago, Illya said:

Is the last sentence about Ukraine? If yes, then you are wrong, because we knew this information from the end of 2024 and it was the #1 topic in Ukrainian news for a while, Kovtun received a lot of hate and deleted all of his posts, related to Ukraine 

He trains in Osijek,Croatia for some years and he told that he has not good relationships with Ukrainian committee.

In Osijek he found place to work and to live and he speaks Croatian and is very proud to represent Croatia in the future.

[BruT06 50]

15 hours ago, copravolley said:

It probably won't be received too well in Ukraine, especially since their gymnastics is going through a great period and they probably have good conditions for training. However, it's not a well-known sport and person to cause a big scandal.

First of all,this is a topic about artistic gymnastics. Second of all,Kovtun had 21 last summer when he won Olympic silver medal at parallel bars with score more than 15. In gymnastics,every score more than 15 is excellent. 

[Illya 590]

2 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Ugh, what's with athletes receiving actual hate when they make a choice for their nationality? Especially if he had trained there for years, it's just not that weird to compete for them..

First of all, he changed nationality during the war and makes him hypocrite a lot, because he talked a big game about how he loves Ukraine, yet he failed to attend the meeting with our president and during the photoshoot it was embarasing, because all of the medalists from Paris were with warriors in frame while Kovtun was absent and they just place in the frame his photo, what looks extremely cringey. 

 

Second of all, he insulted us, saying that in Osijek there was more support for him, what is complete bullshit, because in Ukraine more people watched Olympics than Croatian population, so that's a complete lie. 

 

Third of all, he is highly dependent on his coach Iryna Gorbacheva (Nadiuk), who just wanted a passport of European country. 

 

Yes, our federation is a dumb mess and all of them should be fired, but Kovtun's decision was personal betrayal of Ukraine, and trust me, as Ukrainians we know much more than all of this forum users, because we knew about this news for 8 months now and we know much more than all of the Croatians or other nations representatives just because Nadiuk lied in our faces a lot and Kovtun just followed her after the Olympics. So yeah, he received rightful amount of hate and needed to be accountable, he is not a child anymore 

[copravolley 639]

2 hours ago, Illya said:

Is the last sentence about Ukraine? If yes, then you are wrong, because we knew this information from the end of 2024 and it was the #1 topic in Ukrainian news for a while, Kovtun received a lot of hate and deleted all of his posts, related to Ukraine 

I think that he isn`t such a well-known figure as Olga Kharlan, Klitschko, or formerly Shevchenko to cause a big scandal. Secondly, these are still isolated cases for now, similar to the situation of athletes from Russia in other countries, e.g. Kasatkina in tennis.

Edited June 10, 2025 by copravolley

[heywoodu 16,459]

16 minutes ago, Illya said:

First of all, he changed nationality during the war and makes him hypocrite a lot, because he talked a big game about how he loves Ukraine, yet he failed to attend the meeting with our president and during the photoshoot it was embarasing, because all of the medalists from Paris were with warriors in frame while Kovtun was absent and they just place in the frame his photo, what looks extremely cringey. 

 

Second of all, he insulted us, saying that in Osijek there was more support for him, what is complete bullshit, because in Ukraine more people watched Olympics than Croatian population, so that's a complete lie. 

 

Third of all, he is highly dependent on his coach Iryna Gorbacheva (Nadiuk), who just wanted a passport of European country. 

 

Yes, our federation is a dumb mess and all of them should be fired, but Kovtun's decision was personal betrayal of Ukraine, and trust me, as Ukrainians we know much more than all of this forum users, because we knew about this news for 8 months now and we know much more than all of the Croatians or other nations representatives just because Nadiuk lied in our faces a lot and Kovtun just followed her after the Olympics. So yeah, he received rightful amount of hate and needed to be accountable, he is not a child anymore 

Jeez. Wishing the Ukrainian team all the best, truly, but kinda cheering a bit extra for Kovtun now if these are the reactions he gets.