Lawmaker and ex-MMA fighter Monson slams as ‘shame’ US influence on IOC

MOSCOW, October 22. /TASS/. The United States exercises control over the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and it ‘is a shame’ turning away many people from watching the Olympic Games, US-born Russian lawmaker and MMA star Jeff Monson told TASS on Tuesday.
“The Olympics turned into politics and the US controls it,” Monson said in an interview with TASS. “The US takes money from the IOC if it does not listen to what it says.”
“It turned political, it’s a shame and it’s unfortunate to watch them <…> It’s unfortunate that [when] the great athletes and great events happen, they loose up a slasher that makes it uninteresting for me <…> to watch or support these events served by the best athletes. It’s so political that it blocks people,” he said.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board convened for a meeting at the Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland, on March 19-20 and following the opening day it decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in the Parade of Athletes and exclude them as well from the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics overall medal standings.
On October 12, 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) until further notice after the Russian organization included the Olympic councils of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions as its members.
The suspension meant that the ROC cannot act as a national Olympic committee or receive financing from the Olympic movement. The IOC however reserved the right to clear Russian athletes to take part in the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 as neutrals. Later, IOC President Thomas Bach said that Russian athletes should have no affiliation with the ROC if they want to compete at the Olympic Games.
Jeffrey William Monson, 53, dubbed “The Snowman,” hails from the state of Minnesota in the United States. His MMA career boasts a record of 60 wins, 26 defeats and two draws. He is also a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Champion. Last June he announced that he wrapped up his professional fighting career, but hinted on holding exhibition fights.
The US-born MMA fighter was granted Russian citizenship in May 2018 and in September of that year was elected to the Council of Deputies (City Council) in the Krasnogorsk District, Moscow Region, an inner suburb of the neighboring City of Moscow. In September 2023 he was elected as a lawmaker with the State Council of Bashkortostan from the ruling United Russia party.
Monson is known for his love of Russia and its Soviet past. On many occasions, he has appeared in the ring to the strains of the Soviet national anthem. In 2016, he was awarded the title of honorary citizen of Abkhazia; in 2017, he became a citizen of the Lugansk People’s Republic in the Donbass region.