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Home > Sports News > Other Sports News > Article > Rio 2016 Kuwaits shooter says Im a soldier I will only carry our flag

Rio 2016: Kuwait's shooter, says, "I'm a soldier, I will only carry our flag"

Updated on: 02 August,2016 08:25 AM IST  | 
AFP |

Legendary Kuwaiti shooter Fehaid al-Deehani has refused to carry the Olympic neutral team flag at the Rio Games opening ceremony, where the Gulf state's athletes cannot march behind their own emblem

Rio 2016: Kuwait's shooter, says,

Trap shooter Fehaid al-Deehani is Kuwait's only medallist at the Olympics. Pic/Getty Images

Rio de Janeiro: Legendary Kuwaiti shooter Fehaid al-Deehani has refused to carry the Olympic neutral team flag at the Rio Games opening ceremony, where the Gulf state's athletes cannot march behind their own emblem.


Trap shooter Fehaid al-Deehani is Kuwait
Trap shooter Fehaid al-Deehani is Kuwait's only medallist at the Olympics. Pic/Getty Images


Kuwait is suspended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other leading federations such as FIFA, football's world body, over government interference in sport.


Independent athletes
Despite IOC's last-minute calls for dialogue to get the Kuwait government to make a concession, al-Deehani, winner of Kuwait's only Olympic medals, and seven other athletes are resigned to having to compete in Rio as so-called Independent Olympic Athletes.

According to Kuwaiti media, the IOC asked al-Deehani, who took trap shooting bronze medals at the 2000 Sydney and 2012 London Games, to carry the Olympic neutral team flag.

But the Kuwait army officer turned down the request. "I am a military man and I will only carry the Kuwait flag," he said. "I cannot carry the IOC flag."

The IOC and FIFA have now suspended Kuwait three times since 2007 over government interference. The latest dispute has caused anguish across the Gulf state, pitting the government even against global sporting powerbroker Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, a member of the IOC and FIFA, who is from Kuwait.

The government has launched court action in Switzerland seeking $1 billion in damages from the IOC over its suspension, which Youth and Information Minister Sheikh Salman al-Humoud al-Sabah has called "unjustifiable".

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has already ruled against the government, and a UN envoy's efforts to mediate have also come to nothing.

The Kuwait parliament amended its controversial sports law in June, but the government still has the power to dissolve sports associations and federations.

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