“You will never find in me a desire to mock and denigrate anyone,” Jolly said.
Taraba, who was to have represented his country at the closing event on August 11, posted on Facebook that the organizers of the event had “prepared for the world a disgusting exhibition full of LGBTI ideology and insults to the symbols of Christianity.” He did, however, note that organizers had “apologized to Christians around the world for the offense they caused.”
Taraba, who also serves as environment minister in the Cabinet of left-populist Prime Minister Robert Fico, was elevated to power following last year’s Sept. 30 election on the ticket of the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS). Fico, who before 1989 was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and later founded the social-democratic Smer (Direction) party, has over the past decade increasingly espoused nationalist, pro-Russia and anti-West positions that have brought him into the orbit of far-right forces in Slovakia.
Taraba was previously elected to parliament in 2020 representing the radical People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS).
“I was supposed to represent Slovakia at the closing ceremony,” Taraba continued. “But this Olympics will forever be remembered in the normal world … for abusing the beauty of sport and turning it into progressive political theater.”
“For this reason I have decided not to attend the closing ceremony.”