Ukraine's Olympians leave Salt Lake City medal-less (03/03/02)

Ukraine's Olympians leave Salt Lake City medal-less

by Andrew Nynka

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah - For all their effort and sacrifice prior to the start of the 19th Winter Olympiad in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ukraine's athletes returned home disappointingly medal-less.

Following years of rigorous training and preparation for the games, the best result Ukraine's athletes could muster was a pair of fifth-place finishes in men's freestyle aerials and women's 30-kilometer cross-country skiing.

In both events, however, the fifth place results came as a pleasant and unexpected surprise for the competitors, highlighting a bright spot in Ukraine's disappointing final medal count of zero.

In the men's freestyle aerials event, Stanislav Kravchuk (no relation to Ukraine's former president Leonid Makarovych) told The Weekly that he expected to do no better than sixth place, but was shooting to place in the top 10.

Kravchuk held first place after seven of the event's 12 finalists completed their last jump. With only three jumpers remaining, including gold medal favorite Eric Bourgoust of the United States, Kravchuk, who at that point was holding on to third - overtaken by the event's ultimate silver medalist, Joe Pack of the United States, and the bronze medalist, Alexei Grichin of Belarus - dropped to fifth after Ales Valenta of the Czech Republic took the gold and Canada's Jeff Bean took fourth place.

With Bourgoust jumping last in the final round, it seemed certain that Kravchuk would drop to sixth. However, Bourgoust's crash landing in the final jump of competition left Kravchuk in an unexpected fifth and American Bourgoust in a surprising and disappointing 12th place.

"To be one of the top five in the world is a very amazing feeling for me. I did not expect it. I am very proud of my achievements and feel wonderful to be here competing with the best athletes in the world," the six-year national team veteran Kravchuk said of his performance upon moving up from 10th place to fifth in his final jump of competition.

In the women's 30-kilometer cross-county event it was Valentyna Shevchenko who, on the final day of Olympic competition, pulled a last-minute surprise out of her hat by taking fifth place in the women's endurance event with a time of 1:33:03.1.

Her best finish at the 19th Winter Games prior to the 30-kilometer event came in the women's 10-kilometer classic where she placed 14th followed by 22nd and 23rd place finishes in the 15-kilometer free mass start and 5-kilometer classic/5-kilometer free pursuit events, respectively.

An Olympic veteran of the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, Shevchenko's best prior performance was a ninth place finish in the 4x5-kilometer relay and a prior career-best sixth place finish in the 5 kilometer classic at the 1999 World Championship in Ramsau, Austria.

The 27-year-old Brovary resident could not be reached for comment on her fifth-place finish as many of the athletes competing in the final few days of Olympic competition, including Shevchenko, quickly departed for home following the completion of their respective events.

Following Shevchenko in the 30-kilometer event were Ukrainians Iryna Terelia, who took 18th place with a time of 1:37:32.9, and Olena Rodina, who finished the event in 38th place with a time of 1:46:51.2. Maryna Pestriakova did not finish the event.

In the women's 4x5-kilometer relay event, Ukraine's team of Olena Rodina, Valentyna Shevchenko, Olena Zubrylova and Iryna Terelia were disqualified from competition due to Terelia's testing positive prior to the start of the relay for an excessively high hemoglobin level.

The issue of doping was unclear since high levels of hemoglobin could also come about naturally when an athlete lives at high altitude and the body naturally realeses the chemical EPO, which triggers a higher hemoglobin level.

The Ukrainian biathlon team had been living in Park City, Utah - over 1,000 feet higher than the elevation of their Soldier Hollow competition venue.

The lone Ukrainian athlete in the men's 50-kilometer classic cross-country competition, Roman Leibiuk, took 22nd place with a time of 2:15:50.9.

Women's figure skating proved another disappointing performance for Ukraine as Halyna Maniachenko and Olena Liashenko finished in 12th and 14th places, respectively. The two made only a slight improvement from their standings following the short program, as Maniachenko moved up three places from 15th and Liashenko moved up two places from 16th.

When asked for comment on the skaters' performance, singles coach Marina Amirkhanova said Ukrainian skating programs currently suffer from a lack of funding at all levels. She noted that the country of roughly 50 million presently has less than 10 ice skating rinks to support its Olympic program. In order for her skaters to progress, Ms. Amirkhanova said, they will need to spend more time on the ice - something that would be difficult to accomplish under the current circumstances.

Maniachenko was originally a singles skater but then switched to pairs in the early 1990s. She and her partner at the time, Yevgeny Gilgursky, won a bronze medal in pairs at the 1994 World Junior Championships. But in 1995 Maniachenko was severely injured in practice when Gilgursky's skate blade hit her in the face while they were practicing side-by-side spins. Maniachenko spent a year and a half away from skating and then returned as a singles skater.

Maniachenko finished fourth at the 2002 European Championships in January, out-skating Liashenko - her older, more-experienced teammate - in all three portions of the competition: qualifying round, short program and free skate.

"I was not very happy with my performance," Maniachenko said following the completion of her free program. "It did not feel very clean, and I believe I could have done much better."

Mykola Skriabin took 45th place in the men's giant slalom with a time of 1:18.57 on February 21, capping quite an impressive accomplishment that tends to be overlooked and underestimated when evaluating a skier's skill and potential.

The 24-year-old Lviv native competed in all five alpine events - downhill, slalom, giant slalom, combined and super-giant slalom - a feat that requires the ability to ski the technically demanding slalom and giant slalom courses with the fearlessness and strength required to ski the faster, more wide-open super giant slalom and downhill races.

However, Skriabin fell in the slalom and was classified as a "did not finish" (DNF) for the event.

On the women's side, Yulia Siparenko finished the giant slalom in 2:47.62, good enough for 43rd place among a field of 69 competitors.

The men's four-man bobsled team of Oleh Polyvach, Bohdan Zamostianyk, Oleksander Ivanyshyn and Yurii Zhuravskyi took 22nd place out of a field of 33 sleds, finishing with a combined four-run time of 3:13.77, just 6.26 behind first-place Germany-2.

And in the men's 500-meter short-track skating event, 20-year-old Shostka native Volodymyr Hryhoriev, skating in the preliminary heat with the event's ultimate gold medalist, Canadian Marc Gagnon, did not qualify for the quarterfinal after falling in the middle of the race. Hryhoriev ended up taking the 30th spot in the 500-meter event.

Team Ukraine's results at 19th Winter Olympics

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