1997: THE YEAR IN REVIEW: Sports: Bubka's year, but not Baiul's (12/28/97)

1997: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

Sports: Bubka's year, but not Baiul's

Many sports have included individuals who seem to surpass even the wildest dreams of those whom they compete against. If they are in team sports, they seem to belong in a meta-league beyond "the majors." In hockey - Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux; in soccer - Pélé. In athletics, or track and field, there are many such names - Paavo Nurmi, Jesse Owens, Emil Zatopek.

For years now, Ukraine has been blessed by such an athlete, and if anyone hadn't heard of him before this year's World Athletics Championships in Athens, they have now. His name: Sergey Bubka.

On August 10 he became the only competitor to have ever won six world championships in any event. The Donetsk native achieved this in pole vault, clearing a height of 6.01 meters, and is still one of only three humans to have ever soared an even 6 meters above the ground. (He's done it 40 times.)

The achievement is all the more remarkable since Mr. Bubka was barely able to walk at the beginning of the year, when he was hobbled by shooting pains that gripped his back and legs. He steered clear of competition until going to a meet in Helsinki in June.

No contest - Bubka is the Ukrainian Athlete of the Year.

Baiul recovering from her skid

Oksana Baiul, so recently on top of the world in figure skating, capturing millions of hearts as well as the gold medal at the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994, suffered the exact opposite this year - a skid into ignominy. On the night of January 13, after drinking to excess, she drove her green Mercedes off the road near Bloomfield, Conn., and was subsequently charged with impaired and reckless driving.

Lucky to escape with a fine, a suspended sentence and community service, the 19-year old Ms. Baiul further antagonized many fans when she told talk-show host Oprah Winfrey on February 7 that she "wasn't drunk" despite consuming "four or five" strong cocktails, following this blasé comment with a stereotype: "I'm Russian [I can handle alcohol better]."

However, the skater has resurfaced of late with a more restrained version of her puckish charm. In the fall, in order to promote her glossy-paged book "Secrets of Skating," the Dnipropetrovsk native made appearances on the "Today Show" and "Regis and Kathy Lee," and granted an interview that appears in the Toronto-based Zdorov! magazine's winter 1998 issue. Ms. Baiul said she has simplified her life by ridding herself of fast-paced hangers-on and concentrates on making it as a professional. "My life is boring now," she is quoted as saying, "I eat, sleep and skate."

Some soccer dreams dashed, some continue

The Ukrainian national team's dream of qualifying for its first World Cup tournament since the country became independent came to an end on a sleet-filled afternoon in November in Kyiv.

Despite some lackadaisical play against non-contenders such as Albania and Armenia, the sheer depth of talent on the blue-and-yellow side carried past a heavily favored Portuguese club, into second place in Group Nine behind defending European Champion Germany, and into the qualifying rounds.

Unfortunately, they drew powerhouse Croatia, which dispatched them 2-0 on home turf in Zagreb, and then held them to a 1-1 tie (aided in part by some floridly poor refereeing) on the miserable day of November 15. Despite the heroics of Dynamo Kyiv striker Andrii Shevchenko, they were out.

Although no Ukrainian will be going to France in 1998 (not even piggy-backed on a Russian squad, who were bounced by Italy in the playoffs), hope still endures in the Champions' Cup, where the "Dynamisty," powered by 90,000-strong home crowds (a mere 67,000 above the league average) have been laying waste to their opposition, inflicting a particularly decisive beating on Barcelona - with Mr. Shevchenko netting a hat-trick in the Spaniards' home stadium.

However, the side coached by Valerii Lobanovskyi and Joszef Szabo cannot afford the lack of focus apparent when they lost to already ousted Group C rivals Newcastle United on December 10 in a "meaningless" (in terms of qualifying) match. They go into the new year facing the daunting prospect of March 4 and 18 matches against the Juventus juggernaut, currently rated best in Europe. Then again, Barcelona stands sixth in the rankings to Dynamo's 19th, so the dreams still live.

Tennis: Rusedski rising

This year, Montreal-born naturalized Britisher Greg Rusedski decisively dislodged Andrei Medvedev as the best Ukrainian tennis player ever. Powered by a new coach, amazing control over his atomic serve (clocked at a world record 142.8 miles per hour), and an improving all-around court game, Mr. Rusedski soared from a 56th world ranking to sixth by the end of the season, on the strength of an impressive march to the U.S. Open final in August (which even got his harshest critic, former world No. 1 John McEnroe on his side), and some searing hot performances since.

Mr. Medvedev, who is from Ukraine rather than Ukrainian, has not played altogether badly (he improved his beginning-of-the-year position from 36th to 27th on the Association of Tennis Professionals' ticker), but it does appear that his aching back and knees will likely prevent him from cracking the top five again, although he does do well against flame-throwing Young Turks of Mr. Rusedski's ilk.

Case in point: Mr. Medvedev's victory over the transplanted Ukrainian Canadian in a losing cause in a July Davis Cup qualifying tournament in Kyiv. In fact, the Russian from Ukraine's capital trounced England's human cannon 6-1, 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 and then beat England's other phenom, Tim Henman, 6-3, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 4-6.

Unfortunately, Ukraine lacks Albion's depth, and on the strength of Mr. Rusedski's win over Andriy Rybalko in singles, and a Rusedski-Henman tandem win over Mr. Medvedev and Dmytrii Poliakov in doubles, the Brits won 3-2.

Athletics and various Olympics

In athletics, it wasn't all Mr. Bubka at the world championships in Greece. Sprinter Zhanna Pintusevych of Nizhyn scorched the track in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes, claiming silver and gold, respectively, while the U.S. media single-mindedly locked on Marion Jones, the woman who stole Ms. Pintusevych's 100-meter world title by 0.02 seconds. Shot-putter Oleksander Bohach disgraced himself and lost a gold medal when he tested positive for "pseudo-ephedrine." In all, Ukraine took seven medals home from Athens: two gold, four silver and one bronze.

Diaspora support for Ukraine's Olympic movement continues apace, as Australia's Ukrainian community conveyed news in the July 27 issue of The Weekly that an Australian Friends of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine (NOCU) had been struck and was active in seeking venues and support funding for Ukraine's contingent to the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.

On September 14, the Canadian Friends of the NOCU, led by the indefatigable Stan Haba, held a fund-raiser in support of Ukrainian athletes traveling to the upcoming Winter Olympics in Nagano.

Somewhat surprisingly, at a November meeting of the Ukrainian World Congress Presidium, sports commissioner Vsevolod Sokolyk suggested that moneyed entrepreneurs in Ukraine, known for their extravagance and showy largesse (such as the recent handout of $1 million-worth of tickets to a Kyiv Dynamo game to the capital's residence) should ante up, and that the diaspora community's money and resources could be better allocated than on Ukraine's elite athletes.

The alternative? World Ukrainian Games, expected to be held in Kyiv in 1999. Mr. Sokolyk said planning had begun and expectations of drawing young athletes from all around the world to the city of the golden domes are running high.

Judging from The Weekly's pages, there will likely be considerable interest in such a project in North America, where, at the Ukrainian American Youth Association's resort in Ellenville, N.Y., over 160 young athletes age 10-18 stoked their competitive fires at the Ukrainian Youth Olympic Games on August 9.

Toronto also witnessed an unalloyed expression of Olympic spirit, as Ontario's capital hosted the Special Winter Olympics - the largest single international sporting meet of 1997 - in February 2-9, with eight disabled athletes from Ukraine participating.

Other sporting notes

In the fall, The Weekly carried Team Ukraine Head Coach Basil Tarasko's Baseball Journal, chronicling the successes and wild rides of Ukraine's cadet, junior and senior "boys of summer" from Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kirovohrad in tournaments in England, the Czech Republic and France. Results: the juniors won their European Pool B competition and were promoted; the cadets were bronze medalists at an international tournament, and the seniors were demoted to Pool B. On the strength of live arms of prospects such as Serhii Hlukhyi and Yevhen Tkachenko, and the impressive hitting of kids like Alexander Trokhymenko (junior tournament MVP) and Yuri Gordee, Mr. Tarasko was appointed coordinator of scouting in Eastern Europe for the Atlanta Braves of major league baseball.
Ukraine's national men's basketball team took part in its first Eurobasket championship, held in Badalona, northeast of Barcelona, Spain, on June 24-July 6. They played respectably in the round robin (beating a high-scoring Croatian squad and the entry from Latvia), but did not make it into the playoffs. The Ukrainian women's national team, European champions in 1995, reached the semifinals in this year's competition in Budapest, Hungary, but were ousted in a close-fought contest with the Czech Republic, and denied a spot on the top-six list of teams advancing to the world championships.
In hockey, superstar center Dale Hawerchuk, the Ukrainian Canadian (Toronto-born) captain of the National Hockey League's Philadelphia Flyers, was forced into retirement by a chronic hip injury. The Winnipeg Jets' 1981 No. 1 draft pick amassed 518 goals and 891 assists for 1,409 points over a Hall of Fame career (any forward who scores over 500 goals is considered a lock for the shrine on the corner of Toronto's Front and Yonge streets).
"Shutout: The Legend of Terry Sawchuk," Toronto-based author Brian Kendall's biography of the world's greatest goaltender (103 career shutouts, an unreachable record) was published this year by Penguin Books Canada Ltd.

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