As I stated earlier, it’s been a morning here at CNN. Part of the reason is the breaking news that Ukrainian skeleton slider Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from the Winter Olympics for “refusing to adhere” to the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) athlete expression guidelines regarding his insistence on wearing a helmet featuring images of athletes killed during the war in Ukraine in competition.
IOC President Kirsty Coventry met with Heraskevych early Thursday in an attempt to break the impasse, but the Ukrainian stood his ground, resulting in the disqualification.
According to Reuters, Coventry met with reporters after the disqualification – emotional and – at times choking up – and said, “I was not meant to be here, but I thought it was really important to come here and talk to him face to face. No one, especially me, is disagreeing with the messaging, it’s a powerful message, it’s a message of remembrance, of memory.
“The challenge was to find a solution for the field of play. Sadly, we’ve not been able to find that solution… I really wanted to see him race. It’s been an emotional morning.
“It’s literally about the rules and the regulations and that in this case… we have to be able to keep a safe environment for everyone and sadly, that just means no messaging is allowed.”
Read more about the decision to disqualify Heraskevych here.