Ukraine Winter Paralympic athletes protest through Sochi athlete’s village

UKRAINE is expected to today announce whether it will boycott the Sochi Paralympics after its athletes staged a protest.

Ukraine Winter Paralympic athletes have protested ahead of the Games in Sochi.

UKRAINE is expected to today announce whether it will boycott the Sochi Paralympics after its athletes staged their own protest against Russian intervention in Crimea during their welcome ceremony to the Games.

The nation’s 23 athletes left their flag raising ceremony early and marched through the athlete’s village chanting what is believed to be “peace to Ukraine”.

Most nations have been welcomed to the athletes’ village in groups of four but Ukraine had their own welcoming just before host nation Russia.

Team officials have scheduled a press conference in Sochi this afternoon where they are expected to reveal whether the team will attend tonight’s opening ceremony and compete in the Games starting on Saturday.

An International Paralympic Committee spokesman issued the following statement after the drama of the welcoming ceremony: “We look forward to their decision tomorrow and will respect whatever they decide”, the spokesman said.

“Our focus remains on sport and organising the best Paralympic Winter Games ever.”

Australia’s team, meanwhile, unwittingly found itself involved in the political crisis after Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop told reporters the country was considering ways to respond to Russia’s military stand-off with the Ukraine.

That prompted the ABC to report that Australia may boycott the Paralympic Winter Games, after several nations including Canada and Great Britain decided against sending a delegate to Sochi for the 10-day event.

Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) president Glenn Tasker said his athletes remained focused on sport and not politics.

“Our team is here, they are happy. We’ve been very warmly welcomed by our Russian hosts,” Tasker said.

“The athletes village is fantastic. So we’re united and we’re ready to perform.”

There is no federal government representative in Sochi for the Paralympics but Tasker said that was always planned.

“We didn’t invite our sponsors and supporters because we knew it would be a difficult trip time-wise and logistic-wise,” he said.

“But we made that decision a fair while ago in our pre-Games planning and well before any recent developments.”