“Unauthorized abandonment of service”
On December 26, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation put on the international wanted list the family of Russian fencers – Sergei and Violetta Bida, who left for the United States in the summer of 2023 and will compete for the Stars. Striped suit. At the same time, Sergei is an active employee of the Russian Guard, and Violetta is a military personnel.
The issues that the athletes are accused of are unauthorized abandonment of service and violation of the oath. Under this article, they face up to ten years in prison.
This situation has already been commented on by former Minister of Sports Pavel Kolobkov, Olympic champion in Sydney 2000 epee – the Bida couple also fences in this sport.
“This news was expected. I really don’t understand what Bida was thinking. This is not a child, he is an adult and he understood that there would be a legitimate reaction. They swore. We have a free country if you want to go somewhere. But he broke the law and must answer,” Kolobkov said. To TASS.
The former athlete and now a politician said that Sergei regretted his decision to go to the United States and emphasized that he disappointed his teammates, the leadership of the Russian Fencing Federation (RFF) and other colleagues with this action. athletes and friends.
“All this seems ugly and stupid, you must always remain human. Sergei is 30 years old, adult, Olympic medalist. And now they will demand his arrest and extradition in any country in the world; The law is the same for everyone. If you are doing military service, resign, get discharged, decide. It was a shock for me. A stupid act, a betrayal of friends and loved ones. But sooner or later sobering up will come,” Kolobkov concluded.
It was reported that Bida was a member of the Dynamo club (Moscow) and was also attached to the Russian Guard with the rank of ensign. His wife represented CSKA Moscow and was a military personnel.
At the same time, CSKA’s vice president for military-political work, Svetlana Ishmuratova, told Match TV that the athlete was expelled from the army club in October 2023.
Olympic silver
Bida (nee Khrapina), who is not a representative of CSKA, is most likely no longer in the ranks of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. However, the couple’s departure abroad took place in the summer, when the fencer became a member of the army club.
Sergei Bida won the silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as part of the Russian team. The Olympic team’s epee tournament was remembered for Russia’s outstanding performance, and Bida, who led the team, played a key role in the victories over Italy (45:34) in the quarter-finals and China (45:38) in the semi-finals.
In the final, Japan was defeated with a score of 36:45, but this silver was the first silver for Russia’s epee teams in 25 years and the first silver for epee fencers in 16 years.
Bida, who then placed second in the individual tournament, won the first two matches and defeated Jaisser Ramirez of the USA with a score of 15:2 in the first round, but lost to the 23rd seed in the quarter-finals. Next in the rankings is France’s Romain Cannon (12:15), who eventually became an Olympic champion.
Violetta Bida, a member of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) team, lost to the Italians in the quarterfinals of the epee team tournament (33:35) and did not take part in individual competitions.
Victories in Russia and flight to the USA
After that, the couple repeatedly stated that their goal is to go to the Games in Paris in 2024 and perform successfully there.
“I now have a strong motivation: to return to the Olympic Games and get the gold medal, which I will dedicate to my grandmother,” Sergei, whose family consists of famous domestic athletes and whose grandmother, Valentina Rasvorova, is an Olympic champion, told the press. foil.
Last summer, Sergei Bida won individual gold at the Spartakiad, and in March 2023, the married couple competed at the World Cup, where, in addition to Russian athletes, fencers and fencers from Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Iraq, Lebanon participated. Serbia and Vietnam also competed.
However, in June, Sergei and Violetta Bida left Russia for the United States. Frankly, they did not inform anyone in the Russian Fencing Federation.
The departure of the athletes cost the position of the head coach of the epee team, Alexander Glazunov, who was fired “due to the escape of his athletes to the USA without the permission of the Federation.”
“I have not yet decided what to do next. I will think about it closer to the start of next season. I did not communicate with the guys who left after what happened. The last time I talked to Bida was in April, before the Russian Championship. Then I thought he planned to finish,” said the coach himself.
“The goal is to race for Team USA.”
Only Sergei Bida participated in the US Championship, which became the trigger for criminal prosecution; Violetta, who works as a children’s coach with her husband and continues to be a professional athlete, is not currently competing due to pregnancy.
In addition to Bida, Konstantin Lokhanov and Oleg Knysh, who had previously gone abroad, also performed in the US Championship, but it was Bida who won the tournament and became the United States champion.
“In Russia, I was taken off the payroll and removed from the national team. I was blacklisted there. Just because someone didn’t like one of my videos on social networks. Yes, it’s crazy, but this is Russian politics,” Violetta said in a video interview with the couple following the move.
In the same conversation, Sergei said, “My goal right now is to compete in the Olympic Games for the USA team.”
“Sergey contacted me, congratulated me on my birthday, and then we contacted again. It’s going well, what else can I say? He fences and coaches in California, at a club in San Jose, and competes in the US Championship in neutral status,” Glazunov told TASS. – The man made such a life, such a decision that he was given citizenship so quickly “I don’t think so, so I’m not sure about his performance in the Olympics – both the upcoming one and the next one in Los Angeles. He fences, trains kids and advertises his club. And I’m not the first, and I won’t be the last.”
Famous Soviet biathlete, four-time Olympic champion Alexander Tikhonov called Sergei and Violetta Bida traitors to the country.
“I can’t describe this with any other word than betrayal. And there is no need to put them on the wanted list – they need to be immediately deprived of Russian citizenship. I think this is due to their momentary weakness. And this is a very wrong decision,” Tikhonov commented to RIA Novosti.