Ukrainian Olympic head on Russian rival: ‘He is my enemy’

By JOHN LEICESTER and HANNA ARHIROVA
Associated Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The presidents of Ukrainian and Russian Olympic committees fought together as teammates at the 1992 Barcelona Games and won a gold medal in fencing for the post-Soviet Unified Team. They are now on opposite sides of the war that Russia is waging on Ukraine. They’re fighting each other in a growing split within the Olympic movement over whether Russia and ally Belarus should be barred from next year’s Paris Games. Ukraine’s Vadym Guttsait now speaks only with contempt of Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov. Guttsait says in an interview with The Associated Press “I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to know him at all. He is my enemy.”