KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s Olympians focused on performing their best in Paris bear an additional burden – worrying about what might happen back home in the war pitting their homeland against Russia.
Athletes could not help being preoccupied as they boarded a train on Tuesday with “Olympic carriages” on their way to the Games. Planes remain out of the question in Ukraine with constant air raids and attacks by missiles and drones 29 months into the war.
“This is a great responsibility. I have pledged to do everything to make my country and my son proud,” said Greco-Roman wrestler Parviz Nasibov, already a silver medallist at the Tokyo 2020 Games, as he cuddled his infant son before departure.
“But with everything going on in our country, with missiles flying about, my dreams take second place. I will be thinking about my family and my son.”
His wife Olena did her very best to look unworried.
“He’s always right there. We’re always on the phone, talking,” she said. “We’ll miss him, but it’s all worth it.”
Judo athlete Bogdan Iadov, a gold medallist at the 2022 European championship, admitted that staying on task was not easy.
“You keep thinking about whether everything is all right and that a missile like the one that hit the children’s hospital could have hit our home,” he said, referring to a missile strike this month on Kyiv’s largest children’s hospital.
“Of course it’s hard. Hard to train, hard to compete. But it’s possible that everything happening in our country, this dreadful war, even helps me. It means I have to give everything I’ve got.”
Olena Kryvytska, competing in the epee fencing events, says her brother on the front line will be cheering her on, as will his comrades-in-arms.
“I think all the athletes who put in good performances will give them extra motivation,” she said.
“They will see that what they are doing, defending our country, is not in vain. They are enabling us to represent our country at the highest level.”
(Reporting by Margaryta Chornokondratenko and Oleskander Kozhukhar; Editing by Ron Popeski and Jamie Freed)
