Isinbayeva criticised after defending anti-gay stance

The Russian, who won her third world title Tuesday in front of a boisterous home crowd, came out in favour of the law which has drawn sharp criticism and led Western activists to call for a boycott of next year’s Winter Olympics in the Russian resort of Sochi.

“If we allow to promote and do all this stuff on the street, we are very afraid about our nation because we consider ourselves like normal, standard people,” said Isinbayeva, a two-times Olympic champion. “We just live with boys with woman, woman with boys. Everything must be fine. It comes from history. We never had any problems, these problems in Russia, and we don’t want to have any in the future.”

At least two Swedish athletes competed yesterday with their fingernails painted in rainbow colours at Luzhniki Stadium, the venue that also hosted the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Emma Green Tregaro, who won a bronze medal at the 2005 worlds, posted a picture of her fingers on the social media site Instagram, saying “Nails painted in the colors of the rainbow.” She followed that with several hashtags, including “#pride” and “moscow2013.”

“The first thing that happened when I came to Moscow and pulled my curtains aside was that I saw the rainbow and that felt a little ironic,” Green Tregaro said in a video posted on the website of Swedish newspaper Expressen. “Then I had a suggestion from a friend on Instagram that maybe I could paint my nails in the colors of the rainbow and that felt like a simple, small thing that maybe could trigger some thoughts.”

Swedish sprinter Moa Hjelmer ran in the 200-metre heats with nails painted in the rainbow colors. “Some team-mates have done the same,” Sweden team spokesman Fredrik Trahn said. “The federation has not discussed it. It is all up to the  athletes.”

The IAAF, the sport’s governing body, said both opinions should be respected. “The IAAF constitution underlines our commitment to principle of nondiscrimination in terms of religious, political or sexual orientation,” IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said. “Allied to this is our belief in free expression as a basic human right, which means we must respect the opinions of both Green Tregaro and  Isinbayeva.”

Isinbayeva said it was wrong for the Swedes to make such a statement while competing in Russia. “It’s unrespectful to our country. It’s unrespectful to our citizens because we are Russians. Maybe we are different from European people and other people from different lands,” Isinbayeva told reporters. “We have our home and everyone has to respect (it). When we arrive to different countries, we try to follow their rules.”

American middle-distance runner Nick Symmonds, who won the silver medal in the 800 metres on Tuesday, blasted Isinbayeva for her comments. “Oh my god. I can’t believe she said that. It’s bad,” said Symmonds. “For Yelena to come out and say we are normal, standard Russian citizens – I’m paraphrasing here – and we don’t stand for that. I want to say to Yelena, ‘You understand a very large portion of your citizens here are gay and lesbian people. They are standard people, too. They were created this way. For you to tell them that they’re not normal and standard, that’s what we’re taking an issue with.’ That’s why we have to continue to demonstrate and to speak out against the ignorance that she’s showing.”

Symmonds also said he dedicated his silver medal to his gay and lesbian friends, as he had said he would in a blog entry for “Runner’s World” before the championships.

“While I was here I wanted to focus on athletics. I wanted to win a medal. That was my job,” Symmonds said. “Now that I’m done doing that job, if there’s something I can do, if this gives me a platform to voice my opinion and speak out about the atrocities that I’ve seen here, that’s what I’d like to do.”