Ukrainian swimming coach filmed fighting with his daughter

Ukraine team official Mihail Zubkov was suspended by world swimming authorities on Wednesday for assaulting his daughter Kateryna, a swimmer, at the world championships.

Photo: Ukrainian swimming coach filmed fighting with his daughter

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In TV footage captured on Tuesday, Zubkov was shown scuffling with his 20-year-old daughter, Kateryna Zubkova, at Rod Laver Arena.

Zubkov, who is Kateryna’s coach, was stripped of his accreditation at the event and banned by Australian officials from making any contact with his daughter. He is due to appear at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, where police will seek to extend an intervention order - forbidding Zubkov from going within 200 meters of his daughter - until he leaves Australia at the end of the week.

The footage by host broadcaster the Nine Network showed Zubkov swinging and trying to aggressively grab his daughter against her will, and it concluded with the father attempting to comfort the swimmer by embracing her on the floor. The altercation ended when Nine Network staff alerted police.

The woman did not require any medical treatment.

She won her 50-meter backstroke heat on Wednesday, but did not qualify for the semifinals, the AP reports.

Police tried to have an intervention order extended, banning Zubkov from contacting his daughter, but the magistrate dismissed the matter after the swimmer refused to give evidence.

Speaking through an interpreter, Zubkov gave an undertaking that he would not engage in conduct similar to his behaviour at the championships, local media at the court reported.

 Zubkov and his daughter left the court together.

Kateryna told local media the incident had been sparked by her refusal to stop seeing a boyfriend against her father's wishes, Reuters reports.

"It's my fault too. I disobeyed him and he got upset," Kateryna said. "He would never hurt me. He's a wonderful father. He loves me a lot, he worries about me a lot. I just want him to come back, so we can talk and be with me."

"It's just a father-daughter problem which had nothing to do with my coach or swimming," she said.

Source: agencies

Prepared by Alexander Timoshik
Pravda.ru