2002: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

The sports world: boxing, Olympics, etc.

The 19th Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, were largely a disappointment for the world of Ukrainian sports in 2002. The Ukrainian delegation, which had some strong medal hopefuls and a handful of outside shots at medals, walked away from Salt Lake empty-handed.

However, the performance of world champion boxers Vitalii and Volodymyr Klitschko made worldwide news and introduced much of the boxing world to the tall, sleek and intelligent Ukrainian boxing duo which, at the close of the year, seemed poised to prove themselves as the best in the sport.

Most recently, Volodymyr Klitschko defeated American Jameel McCline with a 10th round knockout on December 7 in Las Vegas to successfully defend his WBO world championship title. Klitschko won nine of 10 rounds on two scorecards and eight on the third, but was fighting cautiously throughout the bout. Since the younger Klitschko had boxed in Germany for most of his career, the fight was seen as Volodymyr's first big challenge in the United States.

The 26-year-old Volodymyr also defended his title on June 29 against Ray Mercer, winning by technical knockout (TKO) with 1 minute, 8 seconds left in the sixth round. Mercer, whose record was 30-4-1 with 22 knockouts, was bloodied and humbled. In defeating Mercer by TKO, Klitschko (whose record before this bout was 38-1 with 35 knockouts) did what no other fighter in the world had ever done.

Prior to fighting Mercer, the WBO champion dealt a methodical eight-round beating to South African Frans Botha at Hanns-Martin Schleyer Halle in Stuttgart, Germany, on March 16. Botha showed toughness, but was able to generate little offense against the 6-foot-7-inch Volodymyr, who rained hard blows on the "White Buffalo" repeatedly before finally bludgeoning Botha to the mat in the eighth round.

Volodymyr's older brother, Vitalii, successfully defended his World Boxing Association title against Larry Donald on November 23 in front of a crowd of 10,000 people in the Westfalenhalle arena in Dortmund, Germany.

Vitalii boxed skillfully throughout the fight before knocking Donald out in the 10th round. It was the first time the 35-year-old Donald was knocked out in his 44-fight career. Klitschko, 32-1 with 31 knockouts, dropped Donald five times before the referee counted "The Legend" out with 23 seconds left in the 10th round.

With the win against Donald the spotlight now rests on Vitalii Klitschko, the mandatory challenger for Lennox Lewis. However, the final details of the duel have yet to be ironed out as the fight has been canceled and rescheduled repeatedly. The fight is currently scheduled for March 2003, but rumors from the Lennox Lewis came have the British fighter walking away from a Klitschko fight in order to box Mike Tyson.

According to a November 18 issue of Sports Illustrated, which featured the Klitschko brothers, Tommy Brooks, who trained both Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, said that although he does not see Vitalii beating Lewis, were Volodymyr to box Lewis, the Ukrainian would "clean Lennox's clock." The SI article also spoke highly of the intelligence of both brothers, saying: "[Vitalii] Klitschko appears to be more accomplished than Lewis, having hung in with former world [chess] champ Garry Kasparov for 31 moves during a 2001 chess exhibition. This year he played both Vladimir Kramnik and Deep Fritz [in chess] - the reigning human and computer champs, respectively - to draws."

Perhaps the brightest light in Ukraine's performance at the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City this past year was the performance of the men's ice hockey team.

On Saturday, February 9, even before the puck dropped at center ice in Ukraine's first preliminary round game versus Belarus, a tremendous sense of accomplishment surrounded the Ukrainian club. The 2002 Winter Games were Ukraine's first ever participation in Olympic hockey competition. Previously, Ukraine had earned its status in the upper echelon of hockey nations by winning the 1998 B-Pool World Championships.

Team Ukraine boasted three semi-noteworthy Ukrainian-born wingers with varying levels of National Hockey League experience: 12-year veteran Dmitri Khristich of the Washington Capitals, second-year rookie Ruslan Fedotenko of the Philadelphia Flyers and 21-year-old Alexei Ponikarovsky of the Toronto Maple Leafs, recalled from the American Hockey League's St. John's Leafs in mid-January.

Initially the Philadelphia Flyers were not too keen on the idea of giving Fedotenko permission to go to the Olympics, but General Manager Bobby Clarke had a change of heart after he realized Fedotenko was one of only a handful of NHL players on Ukraine's roster.

Team Ukraine gained its Olympic ice hockey berth by placing third at the Olympic Qualification Tournament for the Salt Lake City Games in Oslo, Norway, on August 2, 2001, and followed up this performance with a top-10 finish at the 2001 World Championships in Germany.

With two wins and one loss in Group B of the Olympic hockey competition's preliminary round, Ukraine's record was equal to that of the Belarusian team that emerged atop the group that also included Switzerland and France.

In the end, the deciding match-up was Team Ukraine's first Olympic game, played against Belarus on February 9 that Ukraine lost by a score of 1-0.

Ukraine won its next two games against Switzerland and France to tie Belarus with four points at the conclusion of Group B preliminary round competition. Belarus won its game against France (3-1), but lost to Switzerland (2-1). Thus, Belarus' victory over Ukraine allowed the Belarusians to move on to play the Russian Federation in the next round.

The result against Belarus - a one-goal difference - turned out to be the key factor in Ukraine's relegation to play for ninth place against Latvia, a lopsided game which Ukraine lost 9-2.

The best result Ukraine's athletes could muster at the Winter Games was a pair of fifth-place finishes in men's freestyle aerials and women's 30-kilometer cross-country skiing.

In both events 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 told The Weekly that he expected to do no better than sixth place, but was shooting to place in the top 10. Mr. Kravchuk's fifth-place finish was seen as one of Ukraine's highlights during the Salt Lake Games. The other bright spots for Ukraine were Valentyna Shevchenko, who took an unexpected fifth-place finish in the women's 30-kilometer cross-country event, and Lilia Ludan, whose sixth-place finish in the women's luge surprised many people.

The overall disappointment in the Ukrainian camp came mainly from the women's biathlon team which resulted in the firing of a biathlon coach and biathlon team leader. Prior to the Winter Games in Salt Lake City it seemed the greatest hope for a Ukrainian medal would rest with the biathlon team, specifically Olena Zubrylova. Ms. Zubrylova finished 34th in the 15-kilometer event, what had arguably been her strongest event. She had earned a gold medal in that same event at the 1999 World Championships.

Vladimir Platonov, vice-president of the NOC-Ukraine and rector of the State University of Physical Education and Sport, later told The Weekly that poor preparation and internal dissension were behind the failure of Ukraine's Olympians to win a single medal in Salt Lake City.

Additionally, Mr. Platonov also admitted that cross-country skier Iryna Terelia, who, along with Russian cross-country skier Larissa Lazutina was disqualified from the cross-country relay on the final day of competition, had indeed taken a banned substance, which had enhanced her red blood cell count. He called the incident unfortunate and explained that neither her federation nor her coaches sanctioned her action.

It was later suggested that the problems for the biathlon team began after the squad reached the top of the sport with its world championship in 1999. Then the federation's president, Ivan Biekov, who had directed it since 1991 and led it to the top spot in the world, was replaced. To help in raising badly needed funds, the new federation head asked businessmen to get involved in the federation's activities. The businessmen, however, put the accent on developing their commercial projects at the expense of the federation's successes, explained Mr. Platonov, and the squad's downhill slide began. As a consequence, many of the leading trainers that Mr. Biekov had retained left as well.

Ukrainian biathlete Ms. Zubrylova and her personal coach and husband, Roman Zubrylov, then moved to Belarus on July 9 after expressing dissatisfaction with the way the Ukrainian sports officials have treated them. Ms. Zubrylova's contract expired this past year and the renegotiation process with Ukrainian authorities failed, causing the Zubrylovs to leave.

Ms. Zubrylova is not the first Ukrainian winter sport athlete to decide to stop performing under the Ukrainian flag. Earlier, several athletes had left for Russia. A top freestyle skier, Alla Tsuper, was the first to trade her Ukrainian citizenship for a Belarusian one, in order to obtain the opportunity to train in adequate conditions.

Ms. Zubrylova is no ordinary athlete. Her first success came in 1997 when she won three silver medals in individual events at the World Championships. In 1999 Ms. Zubrylova brought Ukraine a World Cup gold medal as she crossed the finish line of the 15-kilometer race with a Ukrainian flag in her hands. In all, she has won four World Championship gold medals during her career. Although her performance during the Salt Lake City Olympics, where she failed to medal, was disappointing, she made a comeback later during the 2002 season, winning a World Championship title in Holmenkollen, Norway, in March.

In preparing for the 2002 Olympic Games members of Ukraine's biathlon, cross-country and figure skating teams spent several weeks prior to the opening of the 19th Winter Olympiad training in Sun Valley, Idaho, thanks in large part to the work of Laryssa Barabash-Temple, attaché for the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, Jack Sibbach of the Sun Valley Company, and Chip Fisher, president of the Idaho governor's Olympic Committee. Ms. Temple was also instrumental in securing press accreditation for The Weekly at the Salt Lake Games.

On the women's side of Olympic hockey competition, Tammy Lee Shewchuk, a member of Team Canada's women's Olympic gold medal ice hockey team, met with over 150 students of the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Ukrainian Saturday School in Montreal on April 6. According to the newspaper Ukrainian News, Ms. Shewchuk "explained to her audience how her grandparents played an important role in her upbringing and [in] teaching her to speak Ukrainian - and talked about how proud she was of her Ukrainian heritage."

Zenon Snylyk, a former editor of The Ukrainian Weekly and former editor-in-chief of the Svoboda daily, passed away on January 21, at the age of 68. His sports biography earned him renown, and a place in history, as Mr. Snylyk played on and captained U.S. National Soccer Teams that competed in the Pan-American Games, the World Cup and at the Olympic Games in the years between 1956 and 1964.

Mr. Snylyk played on three U.S. Olympic Teams - in 1956, 1960 and 1964 - and was captain of the first two. At the time Mr. Snylyk was the only American player in history to make three Olympic teams. Twice he played on U.S. National Teams in the Pan-American Games - in 1959, when he was team captain, and in 1963.

On the three types of U.S. National Teams, Mr. Snylyk represented America in a combined total of 92 international matches.

With the U.S. National Teams, Mr. Snylyk traveled all over the world, competing on all five continents. To him a particularly memorable event was the preliminary match for the World Cup on November 13, 1960, in Mexico City. He cherished the historic photograph immortalizing this event, which shows him standing in the middle of the field, the stadium brimming with 115,000 spectators, and, as captain of the U.S. World Cup Team, presenting a pennant to the captain of the Mexican squad.

Above all, Mr. Snylyk was a Ukrainian patriot and that outlook informed his editorial policy. As top editor of UNA publications for a period of over 36 years, he made sure they reflected the views and values of the Ukrainian community in America. He was a passionate defender of the purity of the Ukrainian literary language, vehemently opposing the Russification of Ukrainian language and orthography so evident in Soviet and post-Soviet Ukraine.

Former U.S. Olympian Yaro Dachniwsky of Chicago carried the Olympic torch in Racine, Wis., in early January as it traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, which began on February 8.

Mr. Dachniwsky, a former professional soccer player, today is senior manager of corporate sales for the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer. He was a member of the 1996 U.S. Olympic Handball Team, playing the position of goalkeeper and contributing mightily to the team's ninth place finish in Atlanta - the best U.S. Olympic Team finish ever in that sport.

In the world of chess, Ruslan Ponomaryov, 18, of Kramatorsk on January 23, became the new champion of the world, after defeating his countryman, Vasyl Ivanchuk of Lviv, by a score of 4 1/2:2 1/2 in the final match of the world chess championship, staged by the International Chess Federation FIDE in Moscow.

The winner went undefeated, posting a record of two wins and five draws. Mr. Ponomaryov is the first Ukrainian and the youngest player ever to capture the world title. The world championship match between Ukraine's top two grandmasters had been described as an event of epic significance for Ukrainian chess.

For the first time in history Ukraine possesses both the team and the individual world chess championships - and both of them have Ruslan Ponomaryov written all over them.

Mr. Ponomaryov was born on October 11, 1983, in the city of Horlivka in the Donbas region of Ukraine. He learned chess moves at age 7 and since the age of 12 has been living under the guidance of a full-time chess coach. In the under-18 age category he won the European championship at age 12 and the world championship at 13.

Twelve-year-old Ukrainian Serhiy Karjakin became the youngest person to achieve the rank of grand master during the Sudak Tournament in Ukraine on August 2-12. Mr. Karjakin was 12 years and exactly 7 months old when he attained the rank. Before Mr. Karjakin, the youngest grand master was Bu Xiangzhi of China at age 13 years, 10 months and 13 days. Mr. Ponomaryov became a grand master when he was 14 years and 17 days old, while world-renowned grand master Bobby Fischer accomplished the feat when he was 15 years, 6 months and 1 day old.

The youngster, Mr. Karjakin, was also one of Mr. Ponomaryov's official trainers during the all-Ukrainian FIDE championship between Ponomaryov and Vasyl Ivanchuk of Lviv on January 23 in Moscow.

Additionally, the 2002 chess championship of the Ukrainian Sports Federation of the U.S.A. and Canada (USCAK) took place on October 5 at the Verkhovyna resort in Glen Spey, N.Y. The 12 participants included representatives of five Ukrainian American sports clubs plus two unaffiliated recent arrivals from Ukraine.

Five rounds of competition using the Swiss system produced a clear winner in Borys Baczynskyj (Tryzub, Philadelphia), a chess master and winner of many Ukrainian tournaments, who posted a score of 4:1. Mr. Baczynskyj had victories over the reigning USCAK champion, Olexa Podebryi, and Peter Radomskyj, the only other master in this year's event. The winner's prize was $200.

In soccer news, legendary Ukrainian soccer coach Valerii Lobanovsky, 63, died on May 13 after suffering a stroke. Almost 100,000 people descended on Dynamo Stadium in Kyiv on May 16 to pay homage to the soccer coach.

Mr. Lobanovsky was coaching a game between his Dynamo Kyiv and Zaporizhia Metallurg on May 9, when he became ill, but stayed on the field until his team had attained victory before being transferred to a local hospital by emergency vehicle. He was reported to have suffered a stroke, and his condition worsened in the next three days. He died in Zaporizhia after a second stroke and a brain operation that failed to improve his situation.

Forty minutes into the viewing, the lines were halted as a large group of national deputies numbering more than a hundred entered the stadium, led by National Deputies Valerii Pustovoitenko, a former head of the Ukrainian Soccer Federation, Leonid Kravchuk, the country's first president, and Viktor Medvedchuk.

Shortly after that, President Leonid Kuchma, Prime Minister Anatolii Kinakh and a bevy of ministers and government officials paid their respects. President Kuchma told reporters that Mr. Lobanovsky meant much more to Ukraine than simply soccer.

With thousands of people lining the streets of Kyiv, the hearse bearing the casket of the late legend was moved from the stadium to Baikove Cemetery on the afternoon of May 16, where Mr. Lobanovsky was given a state burial.

On the day of his death, President Kuchma posthumously awarded Mr. Lobanovsky the Hero of Ukraine medal. The same day the Kyiv Dynamo board of directors voted to change the name of Dynamo Stadium to Dynamo-Lobanovsky Stadium.

In diaspora sports the Carpathian Ski Club's (KLK) annual ski races were held on February 23 at Ski Windham in Windham, N.Y. Close to 60 skiers competed in the race held annually in the Catskill Mountains of New York state. Along with the various skiing categories the 2002 KLK races introduced snowboard racing in a separate category, and six athletes of various ages competed on snowboards.

Awards were presented that evening during a banquet for skiers, their families and guests, held at Hunter Mountain in nearby Hunter, N.Y. KLK leaders Erko Palydowycz, Orest Fedash and Zenon Stakhiv conducted the evening's program.

In diaspora soccer news, Nicolaus Kasian was inducted on April 27 into the Hall of Fame of the Philadelphia Old Timers Soccer Association in recognition of his outstanding achievements and contributions in the sport of soccer. This honor was followed on May 1 by formal recognition of his 35 years of distinguished service by the Philadelphia Referees Association. These events marked the culmination of a career devoted to soccer.

The 46th annual Labor Day weekend swim meet was held at the Ukrainian National Association's Soyuzivka resort on August 31 by the Carpathian Ski Club (KLK) under the auspices of the Ukrainian Sports Federation of the U.S.A. and Canada (known by its Ukrainian acronym, USCAK). Trophies and ribbons awarded to individual athletes and teams were funded by the Ukrainian National Association.

Fifty swimmers registered to compete in the meet - among them 17 members of Chornomorska Sitch, a like number of members of the Ukrainian American Youth Association (SUM), five from the Tryzub sports club and three from Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization.

Ultimately, it was the SUM swimmers who were triumphant, winning the team trophy for most points scored during the meet, a total of 168 earned by its athletes. Second place went to Sitch with 145 points. Tryzub earned 59 points, while Plast earned 18.

Also during the Labor Day weekend, USCAK held the 47th annual national tennis championships at Soyuzivka, the resort of the Ukrainian National Association. This past year's tournament was dedicated to the memory of Zenon Snylyk, a great athlete, chief editor of The Ukrainian Weekly and Svoboda, and a member of USCAK's tennis committee, who passed away in January 2002. The dedication ceremony was a celebration of Mr. Snylyk's life and was presented during the opening activities of the tennis tournament and the swimming championships, which were held concurrently at Soyuzivka.

Almost 60 tennis players of various age groups participated in this year's tournament. The Ukrainian National Association sponsored the trophy awards. As in many previous years, the firm of Winner Group from Wilmington, Del., whose owner and president is John Hynansky, sponsored the financial stipends for the men's, women's and junior groups. This year the total amount of stipends was $3,500.

In the men's group, Mark Oryskevich from Chicago defended last year's title by defeating Andrew Salak in a three-and-a-half-hour-long final. In the women's group, last year's finalist, Ann Marie Schumsky from West Hartford, Conn., won the title by defeating Maya Milanytch in two sets.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 12, 2003, No. 2, Vol. LXXI

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