\u201cA political function,\u201d said the statement, means Fauner is \u201cspecifically excluded\u201d from the relay.<\/p>\n
Fauner said in his interview that he was speaking on behalf of his Olympic team-mate Marco Albarello and Turin 2006 gold medallists Giorgio Di Centa, Cristian Zorzi and Pietro Piller Cottrer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all angry,\u201d Fauner said. \u201cWe have not been involved in any way in any initiative for the Winter Olympics in our country. No torchbearers, no ambassadors, no role whatsoever. Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey preferred people from the entertainment world… and singers who do not embody Olympic sport,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The organisers responded that plenty of athletes had carried the torch.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring its first 36 stages, the relay has already welcomed a significant number of Italian champions, including many Olympic medallists, mostly from winter disciplines, and from different generations,\u201d the Milan-Cortina statement said.<\/p>\n
Ghedina made similar comments last month, but Fauner\u2019s statements triggered a reaction from politicians.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe choice of torchbearers is incomprehensible and disconcerting. All the more so since it was not discussed with Matteo Salvini\u2019s Ministry of Transport, which has been more committed than anyone else to making the Games happen,\u201d Salvini\u2019s far-right League party wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n
Sports Minister Andrea Abodi has asked the organising committee and the Italian Olympic Committee for \u201cinformation to understand what the selection criteria were\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn principle, it is obvious that sports legends, those who have made history, should be held in very high and absolute esteem. I too was a bit surprised,\u201d Abodi said.<\/p>\n
The torch will pass through the hands of 10,001 bearers across Italy on its two-month, 12,000km journey to the San Siro stadium in Milan for the opening ceremony on February 6.<\/p>\n
\u2013 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cA political function,\u201d said the statement, means Fauner is \u201cspecifically excluded\u201d from the relay. Fauner said in his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[16669,1558,3595,430,30701,33092,14030,68923,2740,71,137675,2198,25288,6722,111,139,69,98449,5106,97266,18481,415,24996,137677,137679,17155,23737,213,1361,8229,137678,137676,14578,23644],"class_list":["post-231765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-athletes","tag-been","tag-by","tag-celebrities","tag-complaints","tag-deputy","tag-drew","tag-favour","tag-former","tag-from","tag-insulted","tag-italian","tag-matteo","tag-minister","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-olympians","tag-olympics","tag-persistent","tag-politicians","tag-prime","tag-reaction","tag-relay","tag-salvini","tag-snub","tag-snubbed","tag-sports","tag-that","tag-they","tag-torchbearers","tag-torchrelay","tag-tuesday","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}