Olympic Games 2024: who will represent Ukraine at the most important sporting event of the year
Kyiv • UNN
The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris will feature 140 Ukrainian athletes. Among them are athletes who survived the war, lost their loved ones and homes, but continue to fight for victory.
On July 26, 2024, the Summer Olympic Games in Paris will start, where 140 Ukrainian athletes will compete for victory. UNN has prepared stories of athletes who will represent Ukraine at the Olympics despite the war and difficulties in training.
The 2024 Summer Olympics will last until August 11.
This time, the opening ceremony will take place not at the stadium, but on the Seine River, which the Parisian authorities have specially cleared for this event. The delegations of the participating countries will sail on separate boats. The 6 km long route will run along city streets to Trocadero Square, where the opening ceremony will take place. This is the first time the Olympic Opening Ceremony will be held on water.
There will be 140 Ukrainian athletes at the Games.
Sport and War
Among the athletes, Ukraine will be represented by Anna Ryzhykova from Dnipro, whose coach Valentyn Voznyuk, who ran a sports school in Dnipro, was killed by a Russian missile.
"He was always a very cheerful, happy person who did everything he could to make sure that children came, enjoyed themselves, and stayed," Ryzhykova recalls.
The same missile killed Ukrainian boxer, Honored Coach of Ukraine Mykhailo Korenovsky.
Athlete Kateryna Tabashnyk (high jump) suffered an irreparable loss from the war - in August 2022, the athlete's mother was killed in an artillery shelling of Kharkiv. Tabashnyk dedicated the bronze medal she won in the high jump at the 2023 European Indoor Athletics Championships to her mother.
Andriy Protsenko, a high jumper from Kherson region, was under occupation for a month. Despite this, the athlete continued to train.
"At first, I watched the news and did nothing. But then I realized that I needed to distract myself," says Andriy Protsenko.
During the occupation, Andrii trained in the field. He made his own sports equipment from scrap materials. He leveled a 100-meter track in the garden and ran there. He made a barbell out of wheels, made barriers out of metal rods, and trained like that.
Olena Kostevych, who has won five Olympic medals in shooting, and who will also compete at the Olympics this year, is from Chernihiv. She saw the beginning of the full-scale war at a training camp in Austria. However, her heart and thoughts were in her hometown.
I communicated with all my friends and relatives almost every day. Whenever it was possible. The connection was inconsistent. And for a week or so, the connection was completely bad. Just when I was at the European Championships, there was no connection, I didn't know what was happening there, I only read in the news where this or that bomb fell, tried to understand from the photos where it landed. (...) It was very nerve-wracking. Ignorance, when you don't know what's going on. I was not thinking about the competition at all. All my thoughts were only there. There was such a tension that I arrived and was gone for a week. When I got back in touch, when I realized that everything was fine with my family. I could share my grief. My mother-in-law could not stand it. She was there all the time. I think these hostilities took a heavy toll on her health. Everyone has their own story. Everyone has their own grief
European diving champion Oleksiy Sereda lost his home.
"When the war started, a shell hit my house in Mykolaiv. I was lucky because I wasn't there, and my father went to visit a friend. If he had been in the house, he would have just died. It's strange and hard, because you can't plan for the future, but it's the way it is," Sereda said.
Tetiana Sova, one of the Ukrainian wrestlers who will represent Ukraine at the 2024 Olympic Games. Although the athlete is from Poltava region, she will represent Kherson region. The athlete says the war has changed her life.
During this time, my life has changed dramatically. I used to live in Brovary and was married. Now I got divorced and moved to Lviv. Everything has completely changed for me. I know that in Kherson, the HQ of the Air Assault Forces, where we were constantly stationed, was destroyed. Many of my friends from there moved to other cities in Ukraine or abroad
For the first time this year, the Olympic Games will feature a new sport called "breaking". Ukraine will also be represented in this sport, as it has won three licenses. One of the three participants is Kateryna Pavlenko from Kharkiv. Before the outbreak of the full-scale war, she lived in the United States.
"I completely lost myself, lost all motivation, not being able to see my family, who were in an extremely dangerous situation because of the war, and barely had the opportunity to help them financially. For the same reason, I could not participate in competitions around the world," she wrote on her Instagram.
The breaking team also included: Anna Ponomarenko and Oleg Kuznetsov.
Ukraine has three athletes in the boxing section, one of them is Abduraimov Aider from Kharkiv, and this will be his debut.
"It was a difficult preparation. But that's why I'm ready, because it's difficult. There is a saying that goes, 'hard in training is easy in battle. I am calm. I don't think about it. Maybe it will be different when I arrive, because there is a different atmosphere, but for now it is. It's hard to get to the Olympics, and even harder to win a medal. It's not for everyone. I don't think it will be easy for anyone," Aider said in an interview with Suspilne.
This year, only Kamila Konotop, a three-time absolute European weightlifting champion representing Kharkiv region, will represent Ukraine in weightlifting.
She took part in the 2020 Olympic Games, where she reached the top 5.
As for synchronized swimming, sisters Vladyslava and Maryna Aleksiyiv from Kharkiv will compete at the Olympic Games. They are multiple world champions and bronze medalists in artistic swimming at the Tokyo Olympics.
"We live in Kharkiv - it is our home. During the first days of the war, it suffered more than any other city. It was impossible to train, so we decided to go to Italy for six months with the team to continue training," Alexievi said during the telethon.
They say that at first they were not motivated, but after everyone came to their senses and talked to the coach, they decided to continue training.
"We have to represent Ukraine, we have competitions, we have to do our job - to show that Ukraine exists! Our house was destroyed, our pool was destroyed and we are without parents," they added.
The swimmers say they have a great deal of anger toward the Russians and sincerely do not understand what they are being "saved" from.
In diving, Ukrainian athletes won 9 licenses, including army athlete, Honored Master of Sports, multiple champion and medalist of Ukraine Oleh Kolodiy and his wife, European champion in 3-meter springboard diving, Honored Master of Sports of Ukraine Anna Pysmenska, who will represent Luhansk region. Anna actively opposed the participation of the Russian team in the Olympics.
At the Olympic Tennis Games, Ukraine will be represented by the world-famous Elina Svitolina , the first racket of Ukraine in tennis.
"You need to give 100% to the work you do every day for professional sports. It's hard. It is very difficult for all athletes, for each of us, for every Ukrainian. I always remind myself that we have girls and boys who are defending our country at the front, and it is ten times harder for them. Playing somewhere is a chance for me to prove myself as a Ukrainian, for people to watch and cheer for me, to cheer for Ukraine. Every time I go out, I represent not only myself, but also my country. And it's very important for me to win these small victories, but perhaps they are also big ones. I want every day to be filled with pleasant moments for our country," Svitolina said in an interview with NV.
Olga Harlan, a Ukrainian fencer who has won four Olympic medals, 15 World Championships medals and 20 European Championships medals in her sports career, will also be at the Olympics.
In July 2023, Harlan became the first Ukrainian athlete to fight a Russian woman. After defeating her opponent, Harlan refused to shake her hand. This almost cost the Ukrainian athlete her participation in the Olympics.
Also this year, the Ukrainian national football team is participating in the Olympic Games for the first time. The team was selected based on its performance at the European Youth Championship, where it reached the semifinals.
"For the first time in the history of Ukraine's independence, a football team has qualified for the Olympics. We hope that it will be a strong team, because it is very important for us that our clubs send their best players," says Vadym Gutzeit, president of the National Olympic Committee.
The head coach of the football team is Ruslan Rotan. On July 24, Ukraine played its first match against the Iraqi national team, losing 2-1. In the second and third rounds, our players will meet the national teams of Morocco and Argentina.
A total of 140 Ukrainian athletes won 124 licenses to participate in the Olympic Games
The National Olympic Committee (NOC) has approved the composition of Ukraine's official delegation to the 2024 Olympics, which will take place from July 26 to August 11. A total of 297 people are going to Paris.
These are not only athletes, but also coaches and support staff, among others:
- 140 athletes;
- 12 sparring partners and alternative athletes;
- 95 trainers;
- 24 doctors, masseurs and other specialists;
- 4 drivers;
- 16 members of the staff of the national team of Ukraine;
- 6 specialists in administrative, technical and equipment support.
The National Olympic Committee determined the composition of the national team based on the recommendations of the national federations of Olympic sports and in accordance with the qualification criteria.
The Ukrainian team has the most representatives from athletics - 25 athletes. The team will also be represented by 18 football players and 9 athletes each in such disciplines as diving, rowing and wrestling.
The full list of the Ukrainian delegation to the 2024 Olympics can be found here.
