‘Very upset’: 487 athletes dead in devastating revelation

The world has been given a sobering reminder of the devastating backdrop to the Paris Olympics as the worst kind of record is made.

Hurdler Viktoriya Tkachuk and high jumper Vladyslav Lavskyy will compete in Paris. Pictures: Getty

When 9000 athletes float down the River Seine on Saturday morning (AEST) one of the biggest cheers will be when the Ukraine flag appears.

Ukraine is sending its smallest ever team to the Olympic Games – and revealed a horrific death toll due to the Russian invasion of its country.

Despite heavily disrupted preparations, with some athletes leaving Ukraine, others being killed and training facilities destroyed since Russia invaded on February 24, 2022, Ukraine is still sending a 143-strong team to Paris.

“We are proud of our team - the men and women who, despite this war of aggression, managed to prepare for the Olympics and show the spirit of all Ukrainians,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media.

“They have our will to win and Ukrainian character.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Zelensky, stated on social media on Friday that the war had killed 487 Ukrainian athletes.

Hurdler Viktoriya Tkachuk and high jumper Vladyslav Lavskyy will compete in Paris. Pictures: Getty

Among the athletes that have managed to qualify for the Olympics, many had to train away from Ukraine to escape the war and have been unable to see their families.

Athletic events have the highest number of Ukraine participants with 25, while there is a single badminton representative, 20-year-old Polina Buhrova.

“When we read news, we feel very upset,” Buhrova told the AP.

“But it’s also our power and our possibility to show how strong we are that we are here, that we are going to fight until the end.”

French President Emmanuel Macron has been one of Ukraine’s biggest, powerful supporters and has pledged “unconditional support” as well as military aid.

France’s policy of directly opposing Russia has been popular in the country and Ukraine’s athletes will be among those to steal the show.

Because of the stand against the Kremlin, there is a high likelyhood of cyber attacks on the Olympics host nation.

French security forces have warned for months of the danger of attacks aimed at destabilising the Games.

Suspicion will fall on Russia, whose team is banned from Paris in response to the invasion.

Ukrainian Sports Minister Matviy Bidnyi says “the Russians wanted his country to cease to exist” but instead over two years on from the invasion, “the opposite has happened” at the Paris Olympics.

Elina Svitolina was in tears at Wimbledon. Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images.

“Ukrainians are here, Ukraine is participating in the Olympic Games,” he said on the eve of the opening ceremony.

Bidnyi, who replaced Vadym Gutzeit as sports minister last November, said sport’s greatest show spread over a fortnight in Paris — and televised around the globe — would for Ukraine “primarily be a big screen to the world.

“We need to remind the world that Ukraine exists, is fighting, and is capable of winning.

“Under the coordination of the Office of the President of Ukraine, we plan a large campaign to best explain that the very fact we perform under the Ukrainian flag in Paris is a great display of willpower.”

Ukraine won 19 medals in Tokyo in 2021 but Bidnyi says under the vastly different circumstances this year there was a different bar to be set.

“We believe in every Ukrainian athlete and wish to win all the medals,” said the 44-year-old body builder.

“But the truth is broader — every Ukrainian athlete at the Olympic Games is a hero who is already a winner.

“At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, few believed we would stand.

“But we did, Ukrainian defenders stopped the Kremlin’s onslaught.”

Bidnyi said he could not be prouder that the athletes had managed to remain focused enough to qualify for Paris in their respective sports.

“Ukrainian athletes have proudly overcome the incredible hardships brought about by the Russian war,” he said.

“The killing of loved ones, the destruction of homes and stadiums, endless relocations — these are challenges that all Ukrainians, particularly athletes, constantly face.”

Vasiliy Lomachenko has fought on the front line.

Ukrainian athletes, coaches and the country’s sporting infrastructure have not been spared from the destruction wreaked by Russia since their forces invaded in February 2022.

Ukraine co-hosted the European football championships as recently as 2012.

“Sports infrastructure has suffered significant losses — that’s true,” he said.

“The Russians damaged and destroyed more than 500 sports facilities, including 15 Olympic training bases across the country.

“But we can rebuild the sports infrastructure. However, we will never be able to bring back the killed athletes.”

Bidnyi said he dreads waking up to receive new figures about dead and wounded athletes and coaches.

“Every morning, I receive an SMS with updates on how many Ukrainian athletes and coaches the Russians have killed,” he said.

“Almost every day, this number increases. As of now, the Russians have killed 488 Ukrainian athletes and coaches.

“Among them are dozens of world and European champions, participants of previous Olympic Games, who should have been in Paris now but were killed by Russia.”

Those who have made it through to Paris have done so in the most trying of circumstances, says Bidnyi.

“Ukrainian rower Anastasia Rybychok lost her home and training base in Kherson,” he said.

“They were first bombed by the Russians and then flooded after the Russians blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station.

“Because of Russian terror, we experience power outages. Our athletes have to train in gyms without air conditioning or ventilation simply because there is no electricity.

“Many Ukrainian athletes have lost loved ones due to the war.”

Bidnyi says he is delighted that under constant pressure from his office and others the International Olympic Committee have vastly restricted the number of Russians and Belarusians competing in Paris and ordered them to compete under a neutral flag.

They are banned from the opening ceremony.

Russia sent a team of 330 to Tokyo “and today there will be a maximum of 15 people without a state, without a flag, without an anthem, without any possibility of hinting where they came from.”

— with AFP