Many Ukrainian sportsmen and former sportsmen take part in the war against Russia
This is the case of the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko and his younger brother Vladimir, but also of Sergiy Stakhovski or Dmitry Pidruchnyi
Several of them have already died in combat
The mission promised to be thorny for the Ukrainian Paralympic delegation and its 29 athletes (including nine guides).
Expected in Beijing on Wednesday, two days before the start of the Games, she managed to leave Ukraine for China despite the ongoing conflict, the double-locked airspace and heavily disrupted ground traffic in Ukraine.
“I am delighted to say that just a few hours ago the Ukrainian team, made up of 20 athletes and nine guides, arrived safely in Beijing,” Andrew Parsons told a press conference. the President of the International Paralympic Committee.
A feat that rewarded the self-sacrifice of the Ukrainian federation, which refused any other scenario than that of the participation of its thirty athletes in the Winter Games, four years after the 6th in the medal table in Pyeongchang.
Symbolic exfiltration, at a time when Russian forces are trapping Ukrainians on their land, and local sportsmen are more numerous on the battlefield.
Two footballers and a biathlete fall in battle
Some have already fallen, weapons in hand.
This is the case of Vitalii Sapylo, 21, and Dmytro Martynenko, 25, both footballers, as well as Yevhen Malyshev, a young 19-year-old biathlete whose death "in the service of the Ukrainian army" was confirmed by the IBU this Wednesday.
The international biathlon federation also knows that it will not count on Dmytro Pidruchnyi, for the end of the season, who has suddenly become very incidental for a man who has swapped his rifle for the assault rifle.
The 2019 pursuit world champion posted a photo of himself in combat gear in Ternopil, western Ukraine, where he says he joined the National Guard.
Ukraine National Guard says Biathlon world champion Dmitry Pidruchny (competed in 2014/18/22 Olympics) is thanking people for their concern, “I'm grateful to everyone who texts me and worries about my family and to those who support and help Ukraine… 1/2 pic.twitter.com/uVl0txVqhq
— Ali Bradley (@AliBradleyTV) March 2, 2022
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They all secretly hope, like former tennis player Sergiy Stakhovski (31st in the world in 2010), to escape the disastrous fate that war all too often reserves and still wonder where they could find the necessary courage to leave their loved ones, perhaps to the last time.
“I don't really know how I got there, recognizes Stakhovsky.
I know it's very hard for my wife.
“, he told the BBC.
Fear of death and his cold gaze.
Fear of inflicting it by pulling the trigger.
“I know how to use a gun.
If I have to do it, I will do it, resigns himself the former heartthrob of Federer at Wimbledon.
But I rather hope not to have to use a gun.
»
The Klitschkos programmed to fight
A little more belligerent speech on the side of the prodigious Ukrainian boxing industry, starting with the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, not known for his sweetness at the time when he called himself Iron fist, the iron fist, on the most great boxing rings of the world.
“I train all the time, I do training as a former officer and head of territorial defence.
I haven't lost my skills, I'm improving all the time.
I know how to shoot with almost all weapons, he said in recent days on the networks […] Any aggressor must know it: it will not be a healthy walk, it will cost him dearly, we will not surrender.
»
His younger brother, Wladimir, also a former boxing champion, also signed up as a reservist, again not without experience: he learned to shoot a submachine gun, throw grenades and run in underground passages at the age of 12, the kind of adolescence that a Major General father in the Soviet Air Force has to offer you.
"Real brainwashing", by his own admission.
All their lives, the Klitschko brothers were programmed for this war which would inevitably return, because peace never lasts.
They had simply taken the wrong enemy.
Vitali, in 2011, at Grantland:
"All my life, I've been told that the United States was a terrible country...I always believed that I would one day or another have to defend my country against mad Americans who were crusading to control the world. world.
»
It is finally against the return of a Ukraine under Russian influence that the two boxer brothers will take up arms.
"I don't want to shoot, I don't want to kill"
In the former world boxing champions category, Vasyl Lomachenko joined the territorial defense battalion of Belgorod-Dnistrovsky, near Odessa.
The 34-year-old boxer appeared in military fatigues with a machine gun slung over his shoulder on Facebook.
Oleksandr Usyk, recent striker of Anthony Joshua and world heavyweight champion, also poses the weapon in his hand on the Instagram account of the Kharkiv boxing club: "Oleksandr Usyk has joined the territorial defense of the capital and Kyiv region”.
Asked by CNN from the cellar of his house, near Kiev, he said he wanted to "defend his house, his wife, his children and his loved ones".
Again, reluctantly.
“I don't want to shoot, I don't want to kill”, but in the event of an attack, he adds, “I will have no choice but to respond”.
Svitolina and Ukrainian footballers raise money for the army
The mobilization on the front is not the only form of commitment of the Ukrainian sportsmen in this war.
Hesitating for a while at the idea of facing the Russian Anastasia Potapova at the WTA tournament in Monterrey, Elina Svitolina finally played and won, with a promise at the exit of the court.
"All the bonuses I earn here will go to the army."
Several players of the Ukrainian football team - including headliners Oleksandr Zinchenko and Andriy Yarmolenko - called for "resisting" against the Russian invasion, in a video published by the Ukrainian Federation (UAF).
“We ask everyone in football to oppose Russian propaganda, to show and tell the truth about the war in Ukraine by all possible means”, launched thirteen players of “Zbirna”.
Zinchenko (Manchester City), Yarmolenko (West Ham), Ruslan Malinovskyi (Atalanta Bergamo) or Andriy Pyatov (Shakhtar Donetsk) appear in turn in the two-minute clip, interspersed with images of the conflict.
Several of these internationals raised 500,000 euros for the Ukrainian armed forces.
Finally, the Ukrainian coach of the Moldavian club Sheriff Tiraspol, Yuriy Vernydub, returned to defend his country, where sport is already only a futile memory.
Sport
War in Ukraine: Stakhovsky joins the Ukrainian armed forces but hopes "not to have to use a gun"
Sport
War in Ukraine: Two Ukrainian footballers perished in Russian offensives
Russia
Sport
Biathlon
Vitali Klitschko
Tennis
War in Ukraine
Wladimir Klitschko
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