Verniaiev commented on the scandal involving the vandalism at a hotel in Germany
Olympic artistic gymnastics champion Oleg Verniaiev has spoken publicly for the first time about the scandal that erupted after the European Championships in Leipzig, where Ukrainian athletes were accused of trashing a hotel room.
According to the gymnast, he was not in the room at the time of the incident. Verniaiev explained that after the competition ended, he attended an official banquet and then dinner with representatives of the German club Saar, for which he has been competing for 11 years.
“We had a banquet at the Red Bull Arena in Leipzig after the competition. After the banquet, I went out to dinner with the Germans,” the athlete said.
He claims that he only noticed the mess after returning to the hotel.
“When we got back, that mess was already in the room. Apparently, there was an ‘after-banquet’ going on,” Verniaiev said.
As a reminder, in 2025, reports emerged that members of the Ukrainian national artistic gymnastics team, Oleg Verniaiev and Vladislav Gryk, had allegedly damaged a hotel room in Germany. At the time, it was reported that 370 euros had been paid to cover the damages.
Source: his statement on Slava Dyomin’s YouTube channel.
Ilya Kovtun explained why he decided to change his citizenship.
As a reminder, Ukrainian athlete Ilya Kovtun won an artistic gymnastics tournament held in the Swiss city of Balerna.
Earlier, Ilya Kovtun, a silver medalist at the 2024 Olympic Games, commented for the first time on Ukrainians’ reaction to his decision to stop competing for the Ukrainian national team and change his citizenship. He moved to Croatia with his coach at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
