There the Krasnodar region was represented by 110 athletes, making it the top 4th home region for the would-be Olympians after Moscow, the Moscow region and St. Petersburg. Since then, the list has halved - however, it’s not the final list yet.
The other day, the Russian female handball team won an Olympic license, having won from Sweden in Astrakhan. Regretfully, there will be no athletes from Kuban in the national handball team, though in the past it was the Krasnodar handball players (both men and women) who made the skeleton of the country’s Olympic teams.
Reportedly, there will be no basketball players from Kuban playing in Rio, either.
Still, there remains hope that Kuban players of other games may join the national team, like that of rugby-7, or classic and beach female volleyballs. The fate of the Russian track-and-field athletes remains uncertain due to the doping scandals: either they will not go to Brazil at all, or the ‘clean’ ones will perform under the Olympic flag, or under the Russian national one.
On March 28, President of the Russian Olympic Committee Aleksandr Zhukov expressed hope that the Russian national team still may be able to perform at the Olympics.
If that would be the case, a number of athletes from the Krasnodar region would go to Rio - the hurdler Sergei Shubenkov, the triple-jumper Yekaterina Koneva, the javelin throwers Maria Abakumova and Dmitri Tarabin, and the high jumper Daniil Tsyplakov. It is worth noting that neither of the Kuban track-and-field athletes, except from the heptathlon world champion Tatiana Chernova, has become involved in the doping scandals.
The final list of the Russian Olympic team, including the names of the Kuban athletes, will become released when the corresponding Federations have made up their final lists - i.e. about a month before the beginning of the Olympics.
The Kuban trampolining school had for many years been striking the keynote worldwide. It was Aleksandr Moskalenko and Irina Karavaeva whose success was the loudest. Since they left sports, the positions of our atyletes have weakened much. However, Dmitri Ushakov from Yeisk remains a candidate for the national Olympic team.
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