A 21-year-old gymnast’s future homeland is in question. It has been so for a long time now. In 2022, this budding gymnastics star relocated to Croatia to continue his sports training amid the conflict his native country was tangled in. Initially intended for two months, it’s been over three years since his return. PS: He even put his paperwork in for an official citizenship change! While that has been hanging in the balance ever since, the gymnast couldn’t escape the downside that came with this decision. A full-blown social media backlash followed. But did he crumble? Or did he brave through it? Today, you get to know!
Gymnastics fans would have guessed that we’re talking about the Ukrainian gymnast Illia Kovtun. Even though wanting to compete for a certain nation is a personal call for the gymnast, Kovtun’s decision understandably would have ignited a wave of criticism, with Ukrainians expressing their disappointment and frustration. The news may have raised eyebrows about the potential loss of a promising gymnast to the nation. Turns out this was the case. But Kovtun took it all in with a pinch of salt!
April 14, Glas Slavonije featured an interview they conducted with the gymnastics star, Kovtun himself. That’s when it officially came out that there were quite a lot of reactions on social media when he announced that he had decided to change his citizenship. And that initially got to him, “I was a little sad the first day when I saw what they wrote to me on Instagram, but later I said: Well, write whatever you want.”
Illia Kovtun confessed that he grew to realise, “I think that’s all a normal reaction. There’s a war in Ukraine, people have bigger problems… because it’s not easy to live in stress all the time, when you can lose your life every day.” However, some stood at the other end of the spectrum, too. “A lot of people supported me. I understand both.” But in the end, wanting to represent a flag on the gymnastics mats was a personal call, “I’m 21, and I can make my own decisions,” said Kovtun.
That’s how he tackled the brutal social media backlash. And, well, when we say brutal, it was quite so. On his last social media post on Instagram from November 2024, Illia Kovtun added images from the 41st Memorial Arthur Gander, where he competed and won gold for Ukraine. However, he had to limit his comments on the post, presumably due to the backlash. A few comments that still happen to show up display the kind of statements that were coming his way.
However, his family turned out to be a crucial support system in these chaotic conditions. His father has been living in Poland for 13 years, while his sister joined him 7 years ago. His mother, however, is yet to go since she has been living in Ukraine with their old grandmother all this time. So yeah, his connection with the native grew pretty distant. He says, “I haven’t been to Ukraine since the war. I went to my dad in Poland, and they also came to my place in Osijek.” But the burning question still remains unclear. Illia Kovtun, the gymnastics star, has no idea when he will get citizenship. But whenever that happens, it may be a significant loss for Ukraine. Because the boy has a rather stacked resume.
Why the gymnastics star’s transfer might sting his former nation
Well, when the news first broke out, the President of the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee publicly condemned Kovtun’s decision, stating it is “completely unacceptable.” It’s easy to see why this could have been a setback. At the Paris Olympics, Kovtun and his teammates finished fifth in the team final, quite an improvement from their seventh spot in Tokyo. Well, that itself may have had an impact that goes beyond their gymnastics careers. However, Kovtun individually went on to clinch a parallel bars silver at the 2024 Olympics, too.
Beyond this, Illia Kovtun is the owner of four European championship gold medals. The gymnast is also a two-time World Championships medalist, winning silver in 2023 in Antwerp, Belgium, and bronze in 2021 in Kitakyushu, Japan. PS: he’s a parallel bars specialist, having swept parallel bars titles at 4 International Gymnastics Federation’s apparatus World Cup events within 6 weeks in 2022. Clearly, he was quite the gem for the nation, and while his switch is still under contention, a sense of remorse may be natural.
The post Amid Pending Citizenship Shift, 21-Year-Old Gymnastics Star Opens Up About Backlash to Career-Defining Move appeared first on EssentiallySports.
