Belarusian booted from Paralympics for carrying Russian flag

The Belarus team carried Russia’s flag as well as their own at the Paralympic Games opening ceremony, in a show of support for their near-neighbours, who were banned from the competition in Rio de Janeiro.

Andrei Fomachkin was a guest of the Belarusian National Paralympic Committee (NPC) President Oleg Chepel at the Games here, but shouldn’t have been allowed to take part in the Parade of Nations.

The official violated the International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) ban on political gestures.

Recall that during the parade of nations at the Maracana stadium at Wednesday night’s opening ceremony, Belarusian team’s javelin thrower Alexander Tryputs carried the flag of Russian Federation along with their national flag.

“I can only thank our colleague from Belarus”, Lukin said.

IPC spokesperson Craig Spence said: “It’s seen as a political protest because he carried a Russian flag when he’s in the Belarus delegation, and when you’ve got the president of the Belarus National Paralympic Committee being so vocal in the media before these Games saying he disagreed with our decision, then it’s a pretty easy conclusion that last night was a political protest”.

IAAF has ruled to sustan ban on Russian Federation meaning their track and field athletes will miss Rio 2016 Games.

The International Paralympic Committee banned Russian Federation from the games because of the country’s part in a state-sponsored doping system, and identified the flag-carrier as Andrei Fomachkin. “We are in solidarity with the Russian Paralympians”.

“During this hard period, he remembered us”.

‘We will aim to identify said person before deciding on next steps’.

Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, called the Belarusian delegate who held up the flag a “hero” during her daily briefing Thursday, state news agency Itar-Tass reported.

Russian Federation had 267 athlete slots and the IPC has redistributed 240 of them to other nations.