The statements of Mārtiņš Rubeņš, the coach of the Latvian toboggan sports team and the winner of the two-time Olympic bronze medalist at the Beijing Olympic Games, have not had any consequences for the Latvian Olympic Committee or Ruben himself, TV24 reports.
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The two-time Olympic bronze winner Mārtiņš Rubenis has already expressed his position against the government of the People’s Republic of China during his career as an athlete. A couple of months after the bronze medal, the athlete had a day-long hunger strike at the Chinese Embassy in Turin. At the time, Ruben was puzzled that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games could be held in a country “under oppression and massacre.”
Years later, he also picketed at the Chinese embassy in support of the Tibetan people.
In a conversation with Latvian Radio on Sunday, the coach, who is currently participating in the Beijing Olympic Games, did not hide that he is also not at peace with what is happening at the moment. “You can’t sell your soul,” Rubenis told Latvian journalists in Beijing. “I’m standing here where the Chinese Communist Party flags are flying. We’re being shown a huge political theater on the subject: ‘See how good we are here.'”
“We were ready to receive reprimands, hints, instructions, we were expecting something like this, but to our great surprise, we have not received anything from the organizers of the Olympic Games, Chinese officials, other institutions or even news agencies. It surprised me a little. Mārtiņš also contradicts what Mārtiņš said in his interview “whether any reprimands or diplomatic hints were expressed to the Latvian Olympic delegation by the organizers of the Beijing Olympic Games about the views expressed by Mārtiņš Rubeņš to the media, Latvian Olympic delegations revealed on TV24 Deputy Head Raitis Keselis.
Kassel also stated in the program that, according to the information in his possession, the question that had been asked to Ruben, to which he gave such an answer, was: where did the Aparjod Medal really go?
He also went on to say that the topics on which each member of the delegation chose to speak on television as an individual, expressing his or her personal views on behalf of the Olympic Committee and the Olympic delegation, would not be commented on or further developed. “He has the right to such an opinion and it must be said once again that we have not received any assessment of this opinion or any objections to it. The situation is absolutely normal – a person expresses his opinion, we hear it,” said the Deputy Head of the Latvian Olympic Delegation.
