In the first week of competition at the Winter Paralympics in Beijing, the Ukrainian delegation is making an impressive showing. Ukraine has swept three events and is second in medal count, trailing behind only China, a known powerhouse in Paralympic competitions.
The Ukrainian domination of the Games comes when their home is under siege by foreign invasion from Russian forces (excluded from this year's Games), and chaos and uncertainty reign. Each successive day of the invasion brings news stateside that is bleaker and more disturbing than before. For the Ukrainians participating in the Games in Beijing, the daily news updates are more personal and urgent. Many worried about family members back home who were in immediate danger.
Ukrainian athletes are a dominant force in this year's Games despite the urgent threats at home. Ukraine has pulled off three podium sweeps, all in para biathlon competitions. The hat trick included the Ukrainian men's team sweeping the middle-distance vision-impaired biathlon and the sprint vision-impaired biathlon events. In contrast, the women's team snagged all three medals in the middle-distance standing biathlon event. In the case of the men's middle-distance vision-impaired biathlon, all of the top five finishers were Ukrainian athletes.
And the country has another impressive Paralympic record to be proud of. When Ukrainian Vitalii Lukianenko took home the gold for the men's middle-distance vision-impaired event, it made him the most successful male para biathlete of all time with a scorecard of 14 medals, eight of which are gold.
Golds bring a glimmer of hope
Seeking to inspire hope and perseverance back home, Ukrainian athletes have exuded an indomitable spirit, competing and winning despite the emotional turmoil brought on by their home being torn apart by war. Some winners are using the winner's podium as a platform to raise awareness of Ukraine's plight and to express gratitude to the country's military.
Iryna Bui, who won the gold medal in the women's middle-distance standing para biathlon event dedicated her victory to those putting their lives on the line at home, saying, "We would like to dedicate our results to every Ukrainian and all the soldiers in the Ukrainian army who protect us. With our performance we represent the whole country, and this is our battle, here."
Record-breaker Lukianenko echoed Bui’s sentiments. "We are fighting here, not only in Ukraine but here on the sporting stage. We want to focus the attention of European society on the war and the situation in Ukraine and ask for your help to stop this war."
Inspiring even more perseverance and hope amongst Ukrainian citizens is Dmytro Suiarko. As part of Ukraine's biathlon podium sweeps, the 25-year-old won the bronze medal in the middle-distance vision-impaired event just a day after receiving news that the Russian bombing destroyed his home.
The emotional toll war takes
While Bui, Lukianenko, and Suiarhko pushed through their fear and pain, some Ukrainian para-athletes decided to pull out of competition, and understandably so.
Even the best days for the steadiest competitive athlete are filled with tremendous pressure applied by family, coaches, country, fans, and social media to perform at peak levels. Expectations like these fail to acknowledge that even though athletes may be capable of "super-human" feats, they are nonetheless humans, just like the rest of us. And as such, they are vulnerable to mental and emotional stressors that prevent them from operating at peak levels.
The para-athletes of Ukraine are not immune to this. Adding the trauma of invasion onto the ever-present pressure to perform could understandably lead to emotional strife that can make competing difficult.
After receiving disturbing news from home, biathlete Liudmyla Liashenko bowed out of the cross-country competition and Anastasiia Laletina withdrew from the middle-distance sitting biathlon. The decision to skip competition to prioritize mental health was likely not made lightly.
Thankfully, the courageous decisions in 2021 from gymnastics giant Simone Biles and tennis phenom Naomi Osaka to recuse themselves from competition paved the way for other athletes to view dropping out of the competition to prioritize mental health as a viable option.
After the Games
It's unclear what the next few weeks will bring regarding the brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in general. Still, for Ukrainian para-athletes, absolutely everything is up in the air. Once the Games end, everything from lodging to location will be uncertain for the 54 Ukrainian athletes in Beijing. It's reported that they will seek refuge in an undisclosed European country.
And like the millions of other Ukrainians who fled before the invasion, they are uncertain if they will have a home to return to or what that home will look like in the aftermath of war. Whatever happens, one thing is sure: The country's Paralympic perseverance is something that Putin's tanks and bombs can't erase.
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