Putin’s actions go against the spirit of sport, says Yasuhiro Yamashita, who says he is not as good a friend of the Russian leader “as many think.”

One of the great figures of world judo, Yasuhiro Yamashita, seemed to have cut the ties that brought him closer to Vladimir Putin through this sport the last two decades, and attacked the Russian president, saying his actions go against the spirit of sport.

Yamashita, Olympic champion in the open division at Los Angeles 1984 and president of the Japan Judo Federation, wrote on his official website “President Putin is a judoka and these actions go against the spirit and purpose of judo. This cannot be tolerated.”

Yamashita, president of the Japanese Olympic Committee and a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said: “Hearing the media reports about the inhumane acts committed in Ukraine and the Russian military aggression leaves me heartbroken.”

“I hope these cowardly acts will stop,” said the 64-year-old former judoka.

As a result of the sanctions for this military action, the IOC withdrew from Putin the Olympic Order that had been awarded to him in 2001, and the International Judo Federation (IJF) removed all the titles and positions that had been awarded to him. Putin, a black belt and a practitioner of the Japanese martial art since childhood, had been granted the status of honorary president and ambassador of the IJF.

The International Taekwondo Federation stripped him of the honorary 9th Dan black belt that had made him a Grandmaster.

This Tuesday, according to Kyodo News, Japan’s cabinet approved additional sanctions against Russia, freezing the assets of 398 Russian people, including Putin’s two daughters and the wife of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and banned imports of vodka and other products.

The prestigious Kodokan Judo Institute in Tokyo, the sport’s world headquarters, awarded Putin sixth dan when he was in Japan in 2000, a visit he repeated in 2005 and 2016. “When I come to the Kodokan, I have a sense of peace as if I was at home,” said the Russian ruler then.

But since February 24, when Putin launched his “special military operation” against Ukraine, the pressure on the Kodokan to withdraw that rank has increased.

The Kodokan has clarified that a “dan” is awarded for a practitioner’s ability and achievements “at the time the decision is made,” recalls the Japanese newspaper The Asahi Shimbun.

In 2008 Yamashita filmed an instructional video with Putin on the teachings of judo. In 2014, the Olympic champion attended the 2014 World Judo Championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia, and witnessed matches alongside Putin, who has publicly expressed his admiration for the former Japanese judoka.

But Yamashita has made it clear that as a member of the IJF Executive Board he supported Putin’s stripping of the title of honorary president of that federation and has endorsed the IOC’s position against Russia for its violation of the Olympic Truce. “I am not as good a friend (of Putin) as many think,” he said.

Meanwhile Stanislav Pozdnyakov, president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), in a statement on his social networks, stated the national Olympic committees of Russia and China share the position of inadmissibility to politicize sports.

According to TASS, Olympic officials Pozdnyakov and Gou Zhongwen, president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, held bilateral talks via videoconference.

The Russian official spoke about the training and competition processes of Russian athletes in the context of international sanctions while Gou ratified China’s position “that it stands firm on the principle of political neutrality enshrined in the Olympic Charter”.

Following IOC recommendations in late February, most world sports federations decided to exclude athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments, condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a serious violation of Olympic laws.

Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin has stated Russia hopes to participate in the 2024 Paris Olympics, and training camps and competitions are being designed for this purpose and in the current circumstances, a program that they hope to share with other countries.

He reported more than 500 joint events with China are planned.