Since the Russian invasion began in February 2022, more than 420 Ukrainian athletes have been killed, and more than 500 sports infrastructures have been destroyed. However, the Ukrainian delegation continues, month after month, its preparation for the Paris Olympic Games. “Training is interrupted both in the morning and in the evening. Even at night, when our athletes are resting, they sometimes have to get up and go down to the shelters,” says Tamara Tokmatchova, vice-president of the Ukrainian Sports Federation. water and diving team coach.
“In training, when I dive, I worry about my family first. I not only have stress from preparing for the Olympics, I also feel anxiety because of the war” , testifies for his part Oleksiy Sereda, 2019 European diving champion (10 meters), one of the sixty confirmed Ukrainian athletes who will go to Paris next July.
To understand the daily life of these athletes, our correspondent Clara Marchaud went to kyiv and attended several training sessions. Their testimonies, as well as the analysis of Lukas Aubin, research director at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (and author of The Sports War: the new geopolitics) can be found in our video, available on our site, and on all our social networks.