A topless protest by Ukraine’s Femen women’s rights group spiced up feeding time for Ukraine’s Euro 2012 psychic pig, Funtik, as soccer fans waited to see who he would choose to win Thursday’s quarter-final.
Ukraine’s tournament mascot had been dozing in his pen in temperatures of 30oC, but stirred and got up when he heard the familiar sound of the gate opening for his afternoon meal.
Funtik is given two bowls to eat from daily, each marked by the national flag of two teams playing each other at the finals.
Photo: Reuters
Those who have faith in his psychic powers say the bowl he eats from first will prove to be the winner on the night.
However, even before a fan-zone steward could bring in his food — a bowlful each for Portugal and the Czech Republic, who clashed in Warsaw — an activist for Femen barged into the pen.
Olexandra Nemchinova, 31, following the pattern of previous Femen bare-breast protests, ripped off her blouse to reveal the words “Fuck Euro 2012” on her torso and began shouting slogans denouncing the tournament being co-hosted by Ukraine and Poland.
Stewards led Nemchinova out of the pen and handed her over to the local police.
The group carries out topless protests to highlight the growth of the sex industry in Ukraine and has targeted the championship — which it says feeds sex tourism — and UEFA president Michel Platini.
Femen later issued a statement saying the demonstration had been a birthday “gift” to Platini, who turned 57 on Thursday.
The statement said Kiev’s fan zone, where hundreds of soccer lovers drink beer and watch Euro 2012 matches on big screens, was nothing more than “a cattle pen for deceived fans who are seduced by swill in the form of beer and mindless entertainment.”
It was the second Femen protest in two days in Kiev’s city center fan zone, where the numbers of tourists have dwindled following the departure of up to 20,000 Swedish supporters whose team was eliminated in the group stages.
Ahead of the European Championship, which began in Poland on June 8 and ends with the final in Kiev on July 1, the Femen group threatened a wave of actions to disrupt the tournament.
Its activists made two attempts to seize the tournament’s Henri Delaunay trophy when it was on public display in various towns around Ukraine before the tournament started.
Funtik, the pig, seemed unperturbed by the uproar going on around him on Thursday.
He sniffed Nemchinova’s blouse and later dived into his bowls of food, demolishing both of them in short order.
Funtik has had something of a hit-and-miss record in choosing winners up to now.
However, for the record, on Thursday he ate from the bowl marked “Portugal” first.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier