Moscow, Jan 24.- At the request of the Olympic champion in London-2012 high jump, Ivan Ujov, totaled 12 Russian athletes who have asked the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) to compete under a neutral flag, reported today the country's publications.
The new addition to this list was confirmed today by the president of the Russian Federation of the discipline (FRA), Dmitri Shliajtin, in which the world champions, Maria Kuchina (high jump) and Serguei Shubenkov (110 with hurdles) appear.
After extending the past December 1st the suspension of the FRA due to causes of massive doping in this sport in the nation, the IAAF indicated that those athletes under independent controls will be able to compete individually.
In this regard, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitali Mutko and Sports Minister Pável Kolobkov expressed their support for the position taken by these athletes in defense of the negative criteria of some fans of the Eurasian country who consider them traitors after their desire to compete for a neutral flag.
In that sense, Mutko said that 'if our athletes are admitted with a neutral flag, we will be happy. Anyway, we already know that they are ours. 'He also urged his compatriots to stop criticism of Shubenkov, since 'he is a great sportsman, a world champion and the life of a sportsman is very short and we must do everything possible to exploit the full potential that one carries inside'.