EDITORIAL: Ukraine's Olympic hopes (03/08/98)

EDITORIAL

Ukraine's Olympic hopes

For years, the president of Ukraine's National Olympic Committee, Valeriy Borzov, has been warning everyone that the performance of his country's athletes was bound to tail off as the gulf between the Soviet regime's ideologically relentless pursuit of excellence in sport and the newly independent state's hobbled resources and shifting priorities would grow ever deeper and wider.

Some of the athletes themselves seem to share this fatalism. On the Nagano Olympiad's official website, many listed their country of residence as "UKR," but their birthplace, nostalgically, as "URS" (the bearish Olympic abbreviation for the USSR).

But others don't. They simply take what they have and dream. Like figure skater Yuliia Lavrenchuk reveling in her first Olympic appearance at Japan's Big Hat. Like the amazing aerialists in women's freestyle skiing, all four in the top 10 - Tetiana Kozachenko, Alla Tsuper, Yulia Kliukova, Olena Yunchyk - all kids between the ages of 15 and 18.

Unfortunately for Ms. Lavrenchuk, the spotty coverage of these games as provided by CBS-TV and other networks meant that the IBM commercial devoted to her (ironically titled "Watch for me") was the most any of us saw of the young Kyivan's efforts.

The freestylers were more fortunate. It helped that Ms. Tsuper led her group in qualifying, and that the eventual medal winners had to come from behind to best Ukraine's entrants. Since the gold medalist was from the U.S., this guaranteed them coverage.

It's the kind of serendipity they've been blessed with ever since Ukraine's gymnastics and diving coaches decided they could widen their programs' success by adapting it to another sport, ever since Ski Lacroix of Switzerland decided to sponsor Team Ukraine in Lillehammer.

Still others are possessed with the sporting elite's steely determination. At peak age now, they won't let what they've worked for slip from their grasp. Like Olena Petrova, 26, who took home Ukraine's only medal at these games, a silver in the biathlon. In the end, it's only one medal less than Ukraine took at the games in Lillehammer, with Oksana Baiul's gold and Valentyna Tserbe's bronze. At Nagano, Iryna Taranenko Terelia came very close to adding two more bronzes, finishing fourth in two cross-country events.

A columnist recently mused about the irresistible hold of sports on our imaginations, aware as we are that sports should not concern us as much as efforts to stop war, disease, daily injustices. When not obsessed with the stolid, gladiatorial aspects of competition, on occasion we're reminded that these are kids, dreaming. When they merely flirt with success, our hearts are in our throats. We yearn for the dreamers to take our more diluted, more intermittent dreams up on their stronger wings.

Thus, the passion Ukraine's athletes arouse in members of the Ukrainian diaspora. Supporting Ukraine's Olympic effort is the easiest way to see the country succeed on the world stage. It obviously works, and the payoffs are virtually immediate.

And, for all his pragmatic pessimism, Mr. Borzov is no doubt well pleased.