It has already been reported that at the beginning of last week, Latvia’s quotas in cross-country skiing were allocated to the leading cross-country skier in the men’s competition Raimo Vīgants and Bikš, but later it was agreed to postpone the allocation of the second quota. At the sitting held on Wednesday, the second quota was allocated to Slotiņš, while Bikše objected to the decision in the Latvian Olympic Committee (LOC), hoping that he would be able to recover the initially allocated quota.
On Friday, LSF Vice President Gunārs Ikaunieks and skier Bikše’s representative – coach Zintis Bikše – were heard at the LOK Executive Committee meeting. The LOK Executive Committee decided to invite the LSF Board to remotely convene a Board meeting to discuss the use of the membership quota and to formulate a duly substantiated federation decision.
The LOK statement decided to remotely involve Edgars Pukinska, a member of the LOK Executive Committee, and Gunta Vaičulis, the chairman of the LOC Athletes’ Commission, as well as, if possible, a professional mediator.
At an extraordinary meeting of the board on Sunday, it was decided to leave unchanged the decision of the LSF board of January 19 to withdraw the previously nominated Induli Bikši from participation in the Winter Olympics. The justification for the withdrawal of Bikše has also remained unchanged – for spreading false news and destroying the image of LSF, finding that the actions of Indulis Bikše and Zinta Bikše at the Olympic Games will have a negative impact on the cross-country skiing and Latvian team microclimate, which could bring disgrace not only to LSF, also for the Latvian team and the image of Latvia in general.
Bikshe said that in his opinion, this was not a sufficiently substantiated reason why he was denied participation in the Olympic Games.
“I don’t think it’s a valid argument not to miss the Olympics if all the selection criteria are met convincingly,” said the skier. “It looks like it was a caveat not to let go. As a punishment, for telling the truth.”
Bikše also pointed out that after the meeting of the Executive Committee of the LOK, at which the LSF was invited to reconsider the decision, there was indeed hope that the decision would be changed.
“There was hope, the LOK asked them [LSF] “At the meeting, the LOK representatives could not decide, but they expressed their opinion and motivated the federation to make the right decision based on the sporting criteria.” but the board accepted what it had decided before. “
The skier also regretted that the situation could not be remedied at the moment. “There is no time to do anything with this situation, everything was postponed until the last moment and everything is gone, unfortunately,” said Bixe.
The decision of the LSF Board was unanimous, with all five members voting in favor – Dinārs Doršas, Gunārs Ikaunieks, Daniels Fogelis, Einārs Lansmanis and Jānis Puidas.
The skier’s team does not have a good relationship with the LSF and, as the newspaper “Latvijas Avīze” reported last week, the athlete’s father and coach Zintis Bikše have consulted with the police about the latest financial disputes.
The last, but not the first, dispute is that the skier has not received funding from the federation, even though the municipality of Madona has transferred four thousand euros to the LSF for four of its athletes, each of whom is entitled to one thousand. On the other hand, in the LSF board, Puida, who was responsible for cross-country skiing, told the newspaper that the money was available and was not spent for other purposes, but the athlete himself had not applied for, applied in advance or accounted for expenses.
Vīgants was the first in the selection of the Olympic Games according to the criteria established by LSF, followed by Bikše and Slotiņš.
In the women’s competition, quotas have been allocated to Patricia Eiduk, Kitty Auziņa, Estere Wolf, Samanta Krampe and Baiba Bendika.
The Beijing Olympics will take place from February 4 to 20.
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