An Israeli Olympic athlete has dropped out of a major competition after organisers barred him from displaying any symbols representing Israel.
2023’s International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle & Pistol, currently underway in Jakarta, Indonesia, is the inaugural of four tournaments set to take place this year, which will allow athletes to qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
USSR-born Israeli athlete Sergy Rikhter competed at the 2020 Olympic Games hosted in Tokyo after clinching a gold medal in 2019’s European Games.
The 33-year-old sporting star told French magazine Alliance that on 25 January, the day before he planned to travel to the competition in the Indonesian capital, the tournament’s organisers contacted him to explain that he would not be permitted to compete in Indonesia while showing Israeli symbols. They said this would bar him from displaying the Israeli flag on his official rifle and uniform. His sporting rifle is also inscribed with the letters “ISR” referring to his national team.
Indonesia has no formal ties with Israel, although limited trade, tourism, and security relationships exist. In 2016 the Muslim-majority country’s government refused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for a normalisation deal, claiming that Palestinian independence would be a requirement for full ties with the Jewish State.
World Cup organisers reportedly said the Israeli shooter would only be allowed to enter the competition if he used the identification symbols of the ISSF or the International Olympic Committee’s flag. Mr Rikhter refused these demands and instead pulled out from the crunch competition.
“I will never accept to participate in a competition without the ISR on my competition suit, on my personal rifle, and on the results screen,” he told Alliance magazine.
"I will never accept to participate in a competition without the ISR on my competition suit, on my personal rifle, and on the results screen. I do not understand how the Olympic movement approves the holding of international competitions and the brands identification of the countries the athletes represent.
“I start the most important year on the way to Paris when my opponents take a professional advantage over me due to political problems".
“If the Olympic movement, which advocates the existence of sports without distinctions of nationality, religion, race, and sex, does not support its ideology, then what is its value? I don't understand how the state is allowed to organise some sort of competition with a national identity restriction.
"If there was a competition in Israel and we boycotted a country - oh my god - all the athletes would have gotten up and gone in a counter-protest,” he went on.
