Ukrainian paralympians bag six golds in the Beijing Winter OIympics
Playing for the yellow and blue, Ukrainian athletes have won six golds
at the Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing, miles away from the chaos happening in their country after Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine is currently second in the medal count behind China as of Tuesday morning ET, with six gold medals and 17 in total.
Its athletes dominated the para biathlon events on Tuesday, with the men's and women's teams sweeping the middle distance vision impaired and standing categories, respectively.
Iryna Bui, Oleksandra Kononova and Liudmyla Liashenko won the top three medals in the women's middle distance standing while the men took the top five spots in the middle distance vision impaired race, with Vitalii Lukianenko, Anatolii Kovalevskyi and Dmytro Suiarko each making it to the podium.
"We would like to dedicate our results and medals to each and every Ukrainian and all the soldiers in the Ukrainian army who protect us," Bui, 26, told Japan's Kyodo News. "With our performance, we represent the whole country, and this is our battle, here."
Kononova said that even though she is physically in China competing, mentally she is still back home.
“All my thoughts, my heart and my soul is with my family and with my child,” the 31-year-old said.
“Emotionally it’s very difficult to focus and to concentrate on the race and the competition, so this is the most difficult Paralympic Games for me,” she added.
Also, after making a podium finish in the middle distance vision impaired race, 43-year-old Lukianenko was officially named the most successful male para biathlete of all time according to organizers after gathering 14 Paralympic medals — including eight gold — since 2002.
Some Ukrainian athletes have had to pull out of competitions because of the toll Russia's aggression has taken on their loved ones, Al Jazeera reported. The Paralympic organizers were quick to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing after the invasion began.
Tags: #Olympics, #paralympics, #winter games, #sports, #Ukraine