"I have held about 10 meetings, official ones alone, including with the representatives of national committees, three of them are our opponents. And I can state that the attitude toward Russian athletes has changed… I do not expect any provocations at the youth level, especially taking into account, that children are less susceptible to political game than their adult colleagues," Pozdnyakov said.
The 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games are beginning in the Argentinian capital on Saturday. Following the doping scandal, involving Russian athletes, the Russian team has been repeatedly subject to harsh criticism by the representatives of other teams during the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.