Ukrainian sportspeople to ERR: Russian competitors at Winter Olympics 'disgusting'
Ukrainian athletes competing at the ongoing Milano Cortina Winter Olympics have expressed their revulsion at having to compete alongside competitors from aggressor states, meaning Russia and Belarus.
The Ukrainian sportspeople say they feel the International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not have their back.
For Ukrainian competitors, the Winter Olympics, which finish on Sunday, have been an emotionally charged experience, something which has spilled over into results at times.
For instance, in the men's figure skating, Kyrylo Marsak had to compete behind Russian national Pyotr Gumennik, competing under a neutral flag. The event closely followed the exclusion of Vladyslav Heraskevych from the games. The skeleton racer had worn a helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes who have died as a result of Russia's war of aggression, but the IOC deemed the headgear to be unsuitable. Heraskevych was disqualified after wearing the helmet in competition, following an earlier warning.
Marsak's skating performance did not go so well either. "I guess I followed this story too much online. All the news has been so negative and it feels like the IOC is completely against us, and literally supports Russia. At least that's how it seems to me as an outside observer. The tension piled up over my head and I simply couldn't deliver a result," Marsak explained.
.Not only was the Heraskevych saga weighing heavily on his mind, but Marsak also had to deal with concerns about his father, who is deployed on the front line.
He is not the only Ukrainian dealing with such difficulties. "We don't know on any given day where a missile will land, which city will be attacked," Ukrainian biathlete Vitalii Mandzyn told ERR.
"When it's winter outside and that country whose name I don't even want to mention is bombing power plants, the whole country is left without electricity even in -15 or -20 degrees — so you can imagine yourselves how Ukrainians live."
Ukrainian athletes are united in not wanting to compete alongside Russian sportspeople, even if under a neutral flag. "It is very unpleasant in and of itself, as the war is ongoing. In the past, when the Olympic Games got underway, any conflicts were halted and the Olympics were always held in peace. There was peace, people competed. But now the war continues, they came here, compete, and then continue fighting. That is not right. I don't like it at all," said cross-country skier Oleksandr Lisohor.
"Naturally it is disgusting. I don't believe in having neutral athletes and I don't want to compete against them, even if they are under a neutral flag. We all know where they have come from. For us, that is repulsive," Mandzyn said.
Parempoolsed politician, filmmaker and security expert Ilmar Raag agreed. "No one whose homeland is not under attack at the same time can understand how much this affects you emotionally," he told ERR's sports studio Thursday. "What Ukrainians are seeing right now is the normalization of a crime."
"That flag is the most important thing from our perspective. At least theoretically we can acknowledge that there are Russians who do not support the war and who are opposed to Putin and so on, but when we talk about the flag itself, we are talking about the state. That same flag is on the aircraft from which bombs are dropped on Ukraine," he added.
The Winter Olympics run until this Sunday.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
