Former world champion Zhelezovsky complains to Lukashenko over «harassment» :: Charter'97 :: News

Six-time world speed-skating champion Igor Zhelezovsky has sent an open letter to Aleksandr Lukashenko to complain about alleged problems that he started experiencing after failing to attend the Belarusian leader`s conference with top sports officials on October 6 as the head of the Belarusian Union of Skaters.

The former speed-skating star says that a manager of Keramin (tiles and sanitary ware manufacturer) has recently called to the Russian company that employs him and threatened that Keramin would break off with it if he was not fired.

Mr. Zhelezovsky says that the call was a consequence of his absence at the October 6 meeting.

At that meeting, Mr. Lukashenko expressed fresh criticism of sports officials and ordered the replacement of the heads of several sport federations, including Mr. Zhelezovsky.

On October 25, Mr. Zhelezovsky was dismissed as chairman of the Union of Skaters. However, as he said in an interview with BelaPAN on Thursday, he himself wanted to leave. According to him, he filed a resignation application as far back as May. "My main job is abroad and it was difficult to devote proper attention to speed skating."

Mr. Zhelezovsky says in the letter to the Belarusian leader that he did not receive any invitation to the October 6 meeting and stayed abroad at the time.

"As I learnt, you were told that I had refused to attend the conference. This is a lie," he says, noting that he always attended such events before. Mr. Zhelezovsky opines that some "unscrupulous" sports officials appear ho have decided to sling mud at him and bar him from "participating in the development of Belarusian sports."

He calls on the Belarusian leader to take measures to end his harassment.

Mr. Zhelezovsky was replaced by Mikhail Yuspa, a former deputy minister of sports tourism.