Volleyball player will be in charge of carrying the flag of one of the most successful countries ever in the Olympic Games at the opening of the event in Tokyo.
The Russian Olympic Committee (OKR) appointed Russian male volleyball icon Maksim Mikhaylov as one of the two standard-bearers at the Games in Tokyo which will start in less than a month.
At the meeting of the Executive Committee of the OKR, the MVP of the 2017 CEV EuroVolley and 2018 FIVB Volleyball Nations League (two of many international individual awards) and female fencer Sofiya Velikaya were recommended to hold the country’s flag at the opening ceremony of the event in the Japanese capital. This is due to the new guidelines of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which prioritizes absolute gender equality so each nation must have two standard-bearers – a man and a woman – at the opening ceremony of the next Games.
