Ukraine's Olympians: going for gold in the line of fire

Ukraine's Olympic team heads to the Paris Games on Friday with "a spirit of defiance and resilience", said The New York Times, hoping to win 15 to 20 medals. 

But this year's 140 athletes are also a poignant reminder of what the country's prestigious sporting world has lost. About 500 current and former high-level athletes and coaches have died in the war, according to Ukraine's sports ministry. "That's about one in six of the 3,000 sports figures who have taken up arms", said the paper, either voluntarily or by being drafted. Of the 500 dead, 50 were civilians killed in "defenseless" situations, such as Russian airstrikes.

Ukraine's sporting deaths "far exceed" the 155 competitors it sent to the Tokyo Games in 2020, said the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), and some of those killed might have qualified for this year's games, the first since Russia's invasion in 2022. The toll of the war and the "widespread destruction" of sports facilities "threaten to erode Ukraine's edge" in Paris, said ABC News – and threatens the country's future as a "powerhouse of Olympic sport". 

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The debate over Russian participation

Ukraine's Olympic delegation this summer will be its smallest since 1996, when the country first started taking part in the Summer Olympics after gaining independence in 1991. They have already "endured a myriad of challenges", said CNN: "facilities being destroyed, friends and relatives being killed and uncertainty about what the future might hold".

Another challenge will be the prospect of crossing paths with athletes from Russia, whose participation in this year's games has been the subject of "intense debate". The International Olympic Committee barred Russia and its staunch ally Belarus from team sports – but it "broadly accepted the Kremlin's argument that sport is above politics", said CEPA. It ruled in December that it would be unfair to punish athletes based on their passports, and has allowed Russians and Belarusians without a connection to the military to compete as Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs). They will wear neutral uniforms, and be carefully vetted to make sure they have not publicly supported the invasion.

At first, Ukraine threatened to boycott this year's games. In December, 226 Ukrainian athletes wrote an open letter to Emmanuel Macron, urging the French president to bar Russian and Belarusian participants. Kyiv then "reluctantly opted to take part", said The Guardian. Olympic chiefs have asked Ukrainian athletes to avoid contact with their Russian and Belarusian counterparts to avoid possible provocations, according to guidelines published in May. 

Only 16 Russians and 16 Belarusians have so far accepted invitations to compete in Paris. Nevertheless, "It's a mental punishment for Ukrainian athletes to be in the same line-up as Russians", wrestler and Olympic medalist Iryna Koliadenko told CEPA. "When you put them in the same field as Russian and Belarusian athletes, it's going to be nowhere near a fair or equal competition."

Ukraine's disadvantage

For the first time in history, Ukraine will compete in Olympic rock climbing and football at the Paris Games. But in every discipline, the Ukrainian Olympians agree that "they are at an immediate disadvantage", said CEPA. Two years of warfare has taken a psychological and physical toll, with many athletes losing family members, homes, or going without electricity or heat during winter as a result of Russian airstrikes.

And the war is "making it increasingly difficult for Ukraine, once a post-Soviet sports power, to get those headline-capturing medals", according to analysis by The Associated Press. The deaths of Ukrainian coaches and athletes and destruction of training facilities will have a knock-on effect on future generations, who will be deprived of their mentorship. More than 500 sports facilities have been destroyed since the war began in 2022, including 15 Olympic training bases. 

War also imposes a "psychological burden". Athletes have had to "explain to themselves and others why they are still competing when soldiers are dying and lives are being ripped apart". Oleh Doroshchuk, 23-year-old high jumper and one of Ukraine's "brightest prospects", has "learned to ignore air raid sirens" so they don't interrupt his training. Doroshchuk said he has "been forced to look inside himself, questioning whether it's morally right that he's 'just training' when other men are defending front lines". 

But some are "armed with new motivation to fight, through sport, for the broader national cause". For Anna Ryzhykova, her goal is "not just gold, but also to rivet global attention on her country's fight for survival". 

"Our victories are to draw attention to Ukraine", said the Ukrainian hurdler. "You're not doing it for yourself anymore."