In Dagestan, the stadium named after Elena Isinbaeva was renamed

The authorities of Dagestan renamed the stadium Makhachkala, named after the athlete Elena Isinbayeva. The old name – “Labor” was returned to him. The head of Dagestan, Sergey Melikov, stated that the stadium cannot bear the name of Isinbaeva after it turned out that the athlete lives in Spain and will continue to cooperate with the International Olympic Committee.

“She is a talented athlete, but she never connected her life, her past and future with Dagestan. And the latest statements of the athlete, made from abroad, are a serious signal for us and a reason to reconsider the name of the stadium. And in honor of Elena Isinbayeva, let them call it – some gym in Spain, which she preferred to Russia,” wrote Melikov.

In July, the European mass media reported that Elena Isynbayeva lives in the Canary Islands, which are part of Spain. Alexei Navalny’s team established that the athlete owns real estate on the island of Tenerife worth about three million dollars.

Isynbayeva was Vladimir Putin’s confidant in the 2012 presidential election, and in January 2020 she joined the working group on amendments to the Russian Constitution, which allowed Putin to run for two more terms. In addition, Isynbaeva holds the rank of Major of the Russian Army.

Commenting on the media publication, Isynbayeva said that the title was given to her nominally, since she played for the CSKA sports club until 2018, whose members are formally considered military personnel. She called herself a “woman of the world” and declared that she “lives where she works.” The Minister of Sports of Russia, Oleg Matytsyn, declared the inadmissibility of such statements.

• Elena Isynbayeva is the owner of 28 world records in the pole vault, a two-time Olympic champion. She was born in Volgograd, her father is a native of Dagestan.