Weightlifting: Kazakhstan is not going to return Chinshanlo and Maneza to China

Kazakhstan is not going to return Chinshanlo and Maneza to China, Tengrinews.kz reports. Kazakhstan weightlifting team’s head coach Aleksey Ni has commented the statements of Chinese media that some one the Kazakhstan athletes were loaned to it by China. He said that these statements were groundless and untrue being only a fake story made up by Chinese journalists. “Chinese journalists have been calling me. It is a normal practice to loan football or hockey players. Such player can be a citizen of Spain, for example, but be caped for another country. But how can anyone speak of loaning if our weightlifters (who won medals for Kazakhstan at the Olympics) are Kazakhstan citizens? It’s nonsense. They just can’t get the point. How is it possible for Kazakhstan to lease a weightlifter from China? It is a legal nonsense,” Ni said. Ni also gave details of one of the agreements he has with Zulfiya Chinshanlo: “We have agreed with Chinshanlo that she wouldn’t get married until Rio de Janeiro. At first she will win in Rio and then we’ll see,” he said. He also answered why he hadn’t presented Olympic champion with a pot of ice-cream as promised. “After she mentioned ice-cream in a press-conference in London everybody started treating her with ice-cream. I told her – let’s go, and I will buy the ice-cream I promised. But she answered that she would have a sore throat after so much ice-cream. After her performance at the Olympics everybody are giving her ice-cream, wherever she goes - in Taldykorgan and everywhere else. She is like a child, she likes ice-cream,” the head coach said. Aidana Ussupova