The ‘neutral’ contestant in the European Wrestling Championship, Russian Imam Ganishov, is advocating friendly relations with one of the Russian occupiers stationed in the occupied territory of Ukraine, carrying out combat missions as part of the Russian invading army. This information is supported by open data from the social networks of Ganishov’s friends.
Ganishov has also illegally visited the Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine, as reported by our sources at Watchers.
In November of last year, Ganishov reposted a ‘story’ from the Instagram account of a Russian military man with the nickname esenbaev.61. The post featured the Russian occupier with a weapon alongside Ganishov.
The Russian soldier captioned the photo, “Civilians also visit us,” and tagged Ganishov’s Instagram page @imam_.74.
Judging by other photos and videos posted by esenbaev.61 on Instagram, he was in the occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region at the time. In particular, he posted photos with the occupied city of Tokmak in the geolocation.
In addition, the Russian military is prohibited from taking weapons with them when they leave the occupied territory of Ukraine and take leave in Russia. This fact supports the argument that the photo of the soldier with Ganishov was taken in the occupied territory.
Later, Ganishov posted a video from occupied Sevastopol on his Instagram stories. Interestingly, in the video, it was explicitly stated that the ‘neutral wrestler’ considers Sevastopol to be part of Russia.
We should also note that Ganishov actively follows the page esenbaev.61 and frequently likes the photos posted by the occupier.
Ganishov is a highly decorated wrestler. Last year, he became the vice-champion of the world in freestyle wrestling in the 74kg weight category among athletes under 23.
Ganishov’s case serves as another example highlighting the apparent lack of thorough vetting by once again that UWW (United World Wrestling – the federation, that includes freestyle, classical and women’s wrestling) when admitting Russian athletes to competitions.
One of the grounds for not being admitted to competitions, according to the IOC’s recommendation, is active support for the war.
The revealed facts should put an end to Ganishov’s international sports career.
Цей матеріал опубліковано за підтримки Європейського фонду за демократію (EED). Його зміст не обов’язково відображає офіційну позицію EED. Інформація чи погляди, висловлені у цьому матеріалі, є виключною відповідальністю його авторів.