President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Western criticism of Russia as the host of the current Winter Olympics as an "element of competition" but said it means "cheating the athletes."
“There have always been enough of those wishing to do some kind of harm to our country. This is one more element of competition and should be seen as a run-of-the-mill practice. And when they start looking for means of such competition, one such is to bite us in connection with the organization of the Olympics,” Putin said in the film “Soft-Path Philosophy” on Russia’s Rossiya 1 television channel.
“There will always be those wishing to put a fly in the ointment,” he said. “But those are shortsighted people, and they don’t quite realize what they are doing.”
Attempts “to shut something down won’t lead anywhere,” the president said. “The athletic movement, including the international Olympic movement, has already had some damaging experience in 1980, when some counties boycotted the Olympics in the Soviet Union because it moved troops into Afghanistan.”
“It means cheating the athletes. People have been getting ready for the main sports event of their life, and the world is waiting for this event. And then some guys and bints come up with such decisions from their own motives, which have nothing to do with sports,” Putin said.
