CV NEWS FEED // Slovakia has decided to boycott the Olympics closing ceremony after witnessing the controversial opening ceremony, which used a drag show to parody the Last Supper.
Liberty Caller reported that Deputy Prime Minister Tomáš Taraba had previously planned to attend the closing ceremony, but announced on July 28 via social media that he decided against it.
“I was supposed to represent Slovakia at the closing ceremony, but this Olympics will be forever written as a repulsive symbol and degenerate decadence,” he said, according to Liberty Caller.
Taraba also criticized the opening ceremony.
“The insults to Christianity and the presented decadence have reached such a level that they have offended the whole normal world, which understands the difference between culture and garbage,” he said in a July 28 post on X.
According to Liberty Caller, Taraba is part of the Slovak National Party, which tends to lean right and embrace nationalism.
Romania has announced that it will also boycott the closing ceremony — but for a different reason.
Romanian gymnast Ana Barbosu had won a bronze medal on Aug. 5 when American Jordan Chiles appealed her own score, resulting in a 0.1 boost that knocked Barbosu off the podium.
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu called the incident a “scandalous situation” in a social media post and announced his decision to avoid attending the closing ceremony.
“I decided not to attend the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics, following the scandalous situation in the gymnastics, where our athletes were treated in an absolutely dishonorable manner,” Ciolacu said, according to AP News. “To withdraw a medal earned for honest work on the basis of an appeal … is totally unacceptable!”
He said that the incident showed that “somewhere in the system of organizing this competition, something is wrong.”
