OREANDA-NEWS. The head of the All-Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation, Irina Viner-Usmanova, considers the refusal of Israel, whose representative won the Olympic tournament in Tokyo, to participate in the World Championships to be natural. She said this to the agency TASS.

"Dina Averina passed qualification, finals, including the final in the all-around, brilliantly, without making a single visible mistake, and won four individual gold medals. One of those medals in the all-around, the Olympic programme, with a three-point margin over second place. As you can see, the Israeli team refused to compete at the world championships straight away - that is, they were one-dayers. It might be right from their side, but that's not how we work," said Viner-Usmanova.

She added that even in the case of winning the Olympics, the Russian national team together with the Averin sisters would not refuse to participate in the world championships. "Never in my life," she added.

At the Tokyo Olympics, Israel's Lina Ashram earned a gold medal in the individual all-around, beating Russia's Dina Averina. In early September it was reported that Ashram would miss the World Championships "for professional reasons". It was later announced that the entire Israeli team will miss the tournament. In addition, the Bulgarian team, which won the gold in the team all-around, has also withdrawn from the tournament.

At the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships held in Kitakyushu, Russian athletes earned seven gold medals out of nine possible.