Furious that Israel's Linoy Ashram secured the gold medal in the rhythmic gymnast's individual all-around event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, hundreds of Russian internet trolls began to harass the athlete online, according to a report by The Times of Israel.
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Adopting the stance of the country's Olympic team, which expressed outrage that Ashram beat their three-time world champion Dina Averina for first place, they claimed the judges should have punished Ashram more severely for dropping the ribbon during her gold medal-winning routine. Ashram ultimately beat Averina by 0.15 points in Saturday's final.
Ashram posted a video of her celebrating her achievement with her Israeli teammates to her Instagram page Sunday, which proved too much for hundreds of disgruntled Russian gymnastics fans.
"Aren't you ashamed to share this?" wrote one Russian user in a comment that was liked by over 600 others. "Everyone knows that the medal is not yours," according to The Times of Israel. Ashram's win ended Russia's yearslong domination of the event.
In addition to Russian-speaking Israelis who came out in support of Ashram, none other than Romania's 1976 gold medalist Nadia Comaneci praised the Israeli gymnast for her feat. "Congratulations. You made history," she tweeted.
@LynoyAshram congratulations. You made #history 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🤗❤️ pic.twitter.com/nTnzAKL0Zx
— Nadia Comaneci (@nadiacomaneci10) August 7, 2021
The maxim that "any press is good press" has also held true for Ashram, as the uproar appears to have boosted her profile online. Ashram's Instagram following grew from 78,000 on Saturday to more than 160,000 by Sunday morning, The Times of Israel reported.
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Moscow, however, means business. The Russian Olympic Committee has lodged an official complaint and called on the International Gymnastics Federation to overturn Ashram's win. The country's second-place finish behind Bulgaria in the rhythmic gymnastics all-round event stoked further ire, with some promoting the conspiracy theory Olympic judges aimed to deprive Russia of additional gymnastics gold medals.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
