EDITORIAL: Olympic hopes fulfilled (07/21/96)

EDITORIAL

Olympic hopes fulfilled

By the time you read this issue of The Ukrainian Weekly, the opening ceremonies of the XXVI Summer Games will be over, and the young team representing the independent young state of Ukraine will have marched proudly with their blue-and-yellow national flag. It will no doubt be a sight to remember as the 1996 Games are the first Summer Olympics for independent Ukraine.

The significance of Ukraine's participation in the Atlanta Games was noted on July 5 in Kyiv as Ukraine's capital city ceremoniously sent off the Olympic team. Chanting "Ukrayina" and "Peremoha," the Kyivans greeted the athletes as they appeared in their blue-and-yellow sports outfits. Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko told the Olympians: "With only one victory you can bring Ukraine recognition throughout the world, glory, international acclaim, as did our compatriot Oksana Baiul at the Winter Olympic Games in 1994."

Indeed. These Games are expected to be watched by a worldwide audience of some 3.5 billion people - two-thirds of the population of planet Earth. Ukraine's 237 athletes will be among 10,700 athletes representing 197 countries in Atlanta on July 19-August 4.

During its Olympic debut as an independent state at the XVII Winter Olympics in 1994, Ukraine had fielded at team of 37. It was a team hampered by lack of proper equipment and a severe shortage of funds, but it was a proud troupe nonetheless. The honor of carrying independent Ukraine's flag in the opening ceremony on February 12 - the first time ever that flag appeared officially at the Olympics - went to figure skater Viktor Petrenko. At those Games, it will be recalled, the first medal for independent Ukraine was in the 7.5 kilometer biathlon: a bronze captured on February 23 by Valentyna Tserbe. And the first gold went to a graceful sprite, an orphan adopted by the whole world, 16-year-old figure skater Oksana Baiul. As a result of her stunning performance, on the night of February 25 the Ukrainian flag was raised and the Ukrainian anthem was played.

That day represented the realization of a decades-long dream that Ukraine would one day have its own Olympic representation, that Ukraine would take its rightful place among the world's champions.

It was as early as 1916 that a Kyiv Olympic Committee had been established. In 1920, the governments of both the Ukrainian National Republic and the Western Ukrainian National republic tried to participate in the Olympics in Antwerp. The following year Soviet Ukraine organized a Ukrainian Olympic Committee, but this was quickly disbanded by Moscow. Next, as noted in the Newsletter of the Ukrainian World Congress, a Ukrainian Olympic Committee was formed in 1956 (headed by Dr. V. Bilynskyj of Australia) to work for IOC recognition that Ukraine, which had its own seat in the United Nations, should have its own team at the Olympic Games.

In the 1980s talk of forming a National Olympic Committee began to surface in Ukraine. The issue was widely discussed in the press, and petitions were started. Then, in 1989, the World Congress of Free Ukrainians created an Olympic Committee to pursue this same goal. A year later, in December 1990, sports activists from all of Ukraine's oblasts gathered in Kyiv to establish the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, electing former Olympic champion Valeriy Borzov as its president. In March 1992, the International Olympic Committee granted the NOC Ukraine conditional membership. In the meantime, however, during the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville and the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, Ukraine was part of the so-called Unified Team representing the Commonwealth of Independent States. Finally, in 1994, came Ukraine's triumphant entry into the Olympic arena.

Now, in 1996, we will be rooting for Ukraine because of these decades of hope and because inside each of us beats a Ukrainian heart that will pound with excitement as Ukraine's young athletes compete and will be filled with immeasurable joy if any of them are lucky enough to ascend the podium to receive an Olympic medal. (To be sure, we'll also be cheering for our Ukrainian Canadian and Ukrainian American Olympians.)

To all our Olympians, then, we recall the words of the Olympic credo, "Citius, altius, fortius," and bid them good luck and good sportsmanship. And, as these Games are taking place on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Ukraine's independence, may they do us proud.

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