Russian Pole-Vaulter Backs Scrutinized Law MOSCOW - The intensifying debate over a new Russian law that has been criticized in the West as antigay moved into the realm of global sports on Thursday when one of Russia's most prominent athletes publicly backed the measure even as competitors from other nations at the world track and field championships here criticized it. Yelena Isinbayeva, the world champion pole-vaulter and the biggest star in Russian track and field, said she supported the law, which bans "propaganda on nontraditional sexual relationships," and she urged athletes to respect Russia's views on sexuality. The law, signed by President Vladimir V. Putin in June, has set off calls for protests at the Winter Olympics next year in Sochi, and even some demands for a boycott of the Games. While Putin and other supporters say the law is meant to protect children and does not discriminate against gay people, critics say it is clearly intended to suppress homosexuality and could be used as a pretext to arrest anyone who appears to support gay rights. The debate over the law has loomed over the track and field championships at Luzhniki Stadium. The American runner Nick Symmonds on Tuesday dedicated his silver medal in the 800-meter race to gay friends, and several Swedish athletes, including the high-jumper Emma Green Tregaro, painted their nails in rainbow colors as a sign of solidarity with gay people. Isinbayeva, who won her third world title on Tuesday and has drawn the biggest crowds this week, described such criticism as disrespectful. "It's unrespectful to our country," she said at a news conference Thursday. It's unrespectful to our citizens because we are Russians. Maybe we are different than European people, than other people from different lands. We have our law, which everyone has to respect. Isinbayeva also described the legislation as reflecting the legitimate social and cultural views of Russia. "It's my opinion also," she said, adding: "You know, to do all this stuff on the street, we are very afraid about our nation, because we consider ourselves like normal, standard people. We just live boys with women, and women with boys. She added, "It comes from history." Her comments seemed likely to further inflame a debate that has led to boycotts of Russian vodka by gay bars in Western Europe and North America, and comparisons of the Winter Games in Sochi to the Summer Games in Nazi Germany in 1936. Symmonds replied on Thursday: "It blows my mind that such a young, well-traveled, well-educated woman would be so behind the times. She said "normal, standard people" in Russia? Guess what: a lot of these people with Russian citizenship are normal, standard homosexuals. They deserve rights, too. Nick Davies, a spokesman for the International Association of Athletics Federations, track and field's governing body, sought to avoid taking sides. "The I.A.A.F. constitution underlines our commitment to the principle of nondiscrimination in terms of religious, political or sexual orientation," Davies said in a statement. Allied to this is our belief in free expression as a basic human right, which means we must respect the opinions of both Green Tregaro and Isinbayeva. The widening worldwide controversy over the Russian law has prompted officials from the International Olympic Committee and from FIFA, which chose Russia as host of the 2018 World Cup, to demand clarifications from the Kremlin about the law, and assurances that gay athletes and fans will not face mistreatment. This week, protesters held a candlelight vigil outside the Russian Consulate in Montreal. An American gay rights group, Athlete Ally, sought to increase pressure on the I.O.C. on Thursday by demanding that Madrid be chosen as the site of the 2020 Summer Olympics because of Spain's record on protecting gay rights. Critics have said that the anti-propaganda law amounts to government-sanctioned homophobia and is out of sync with Russia's push to host major international events. In response, some Russian officials have noted that homosexuality is not illegal here, unlike the situation in Qatar, host of the 2022 World Cup, or in Dubai, which is competing with Russia for World Expo 2020.