Victor Ponta says he used Putin’s presence to promote Romanian athletes at the Nomad Games

Victor Ponta claims that he deliberately used the information about Vladimir Putin’s presence at the opening ceremony of the World Nomad Games to draw the press’s attention to the Romanian athletes participating in the competition in Kyrgyzstan.

The former prime minister says that 70 Romanian athletes, most of them very young, went to the sixth edition of the event, held in Bishkek, alongside representatives from 104 countries. According to Ponta, the competition brought together approximately 3,000 athletes and featured 43 disciplines.

In a Facebook post, Ponta says that no information about the participation of the Romanian delegation was broadcast in Romania and that the athletes allegedly did not receive financial support from state institutions. He claims that he passed on the information about Putin “through sources” so that the press reports would also explain the context of the Nomad Games.

Ponta specifies that he did not meet Vladimir Putin, but was alongside the Romanian athletes in the arena. His statements come after articles published by Digi24 and HotNews about his participation in the event, where the Russian leader was also reportedly present in the stands. The former prime minister criticizes the reactions focused on Putin and calls on the authorities to support Romanian sport.