Serhiy Kulish won Ukraine’s first medal at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, securing the silver in the 10-meter men’s air rifle finals on Monday, August 8. He scored 204.6 points, second to Italy’s Niccolo Campriani (206.1 points), the silver medal winner in London (2012). Russia’s Vladimir Maslennikov won bronze with 184.2 points.
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Gymnast Oleh Vernyayev, silver medalist (all-around).
Gymnast Oleh Vernyayev won silver on August 10 in the men’s artistic all-around with a total of 92.266 points. He scored 15.033 in floor, 15.533 in pommel horse, 15.300 in rings, 15.500 in vault, 16.100 in parallel bars, and 14.800 in horizontal bar. His score was less than one-tenth of a point behind that of the gold medalist Kohei Uchimura of Japan.
Fencer Olha Kharlan repeated as bronze medal winner in the women’s saber individual event on August 8. It was Ukraine’s first bronze medal in Rio and its second medal at the Games. The 25-year-old from Mykolaiv won her bout against France’s Manon Brunet with a score of 15-10.
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Saber fencer bronze medalist Olha Kharlan.
Earlier in the competition, Kharlan bested Mexico’s Ursula Gonzalez Garate (15-8) in the round of 32, fellow Ukrainian Alina Komashchuk (15-8) in the round of 16, and Italy’s Loreta Gulotta in the quarterfinal (15-14). In the semifinal, Kharlan was defeated by Russia’s Yana Egorian, the eventual gold medal champion. The silver medal was awarded to Russian Sofya Velikaya.
And one of the biggest surprises was that Ukrainian women’s tennis star Elina Svitolina (ranked No. 20 in singles by the WTA) won 6-4, 6-3 against Serena Williams of the U.S.A. in the round of 16, and advanced to the quarterfinals against Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic.
Tennis star Elina Svitolina celebrates after winning against Serena Williams of the U.S.A. in the round of 16.
The National Olympic Committee of Ukraine lists 203 athletes competing in 22 sports (out of 39 sports) in Rio. Ukraine’s government is paying Ukrainian athletes $125,000 for winning gold, $85,000 for silver and $55,000 for a bronze medal.
Milchev as Ukraine’s flag-bearer
Mykola Milchev received the honor of carrying Ukraine’s national flag during the opening ceremonies of the 31st Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The Olympic champion of Sydney 2000, holder of an Olympic record, three-time world record holder and winner of nine awards in trap shooting is participating in his fourth Olympic competition.
Ukraine’s Olympic athletes and officials selected Milchev for the honorary mission at an organizational gathering in the Olympic Village in Rio on August 3.
“This year marks the 30th anniversary of me performing for the national team. These are my fourth Olympics. I have always dreamed to be the flag-bearer of our Olympic team. My dream came true,” Milchev commented on the Facebook page of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine.
Belenyuk wrestles with racism funding
Greco-Roman wrestler Zhan Belenyuk has successfully managed to shrug off taunting insults over his Rwandese background since early childhood, standing tall as one of Ukraine’s top Olympic medal hopefuls.
Despite overcoming many years of mental anguish, the 25-year-old world champion son of a Ukrainian seamstress (Svetlana) and a Rwandese pilot (Vincent) is seriously considering finding another country to fight for if Ukraine reneges on its promised financial support.
Vincent was an aviation student in the former Soviet Union who was killed in Rwanda’s civil war in the 1990’s. Young Zhan was raised in Kyiv and has proudly gone on to represent his homeland.
Racial prejudice has been noted at sporting events in Ukraine, with the national soccer team and top club, Dynamo Kyiv, ordered to play matches behind closed doors because of racism among some fans.
Belenyuk has learned to not take racial abuse too seriously. Most of the verbal attacks thrown his way were of the minor variety. The prevailing thought is racial tension does not actually exist in today’s Ukraine. Intentionally offending a world champion wrestler could be a bold, but dangerous move.
A bigger issue is the ongoing struggle with Ukraine’s sports authorities over promised funding that has not been provided. Belenyuk earned his ticket to the Rio Olympics when he won gold in the 85-kg weight class at the 2015 World Wrestling Championships in Las Vegas.
He has threatened, however, to adopt another citizenship if Ukraine does not make good on its financial commitments promised to its athletes.
Belenyuk was supposed to receive 7,000 hrv ($275) per month, or 84,000 hrv per year. He received nothing. There was no explanation given, except for the armed conflict the Ukrainian government is waging against pro-Russian separatist insurgents in eastern Ukraine – a conflict that has cost many hryvni and about 9,500 lives since it erupted in April 2014.
Ukrainian sports authorities have denied that athletes have paid the price for the military intervention and the rebuilding of the conflict-wrecked region. Kyiv reportedly was spending between $5 million and $7 million per day to defend its war-torn east. It is true all ministries were forced to cut their budgets and allocate funds to the army, but few admitted athletes’ money went to the armed forces.
The head of Ukraine’s wrestling federation, Vitaly Voloshin, backed Belenyuk’s assertions, deploring the fact that Ukrainian gymnast Oleg Stepko earned more by winning a medal at the European Games last year than an average Ukrainian professional athlete makes in a lifetime.
Belenyuk said Russia and Azerbaijan – countries he believes care about their athletes – had offered him citizenship and financial incentives to relinquish his Ukrainian passport. Any citizenship decision would be made after the Summer Olympic Games in Rio.
The Kyiv-raised wrestler, who occasionally returns home, where he shares a one-bedroom apartment with his mother, has not totally given up on Ukraine. It is his wish to carry on Ukraine’s wrestling tradition by making a personal contribution to the sport’s history in the country.
Suspensions for PEDs
The head coach of Ukraine’s national athletics team, Yuriy Kuchynov, reported that Yulia Kalyna has been disqualified from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio after two batches of blood samples tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).
The Sport Arbitration Court in Lausanne, Switzerland, suspended the Ukrainian athlete for two years, meaning the team’s top performer and medal favorite in the 63-kg category will not be competing in Rio.
Kalyna, 27, is a proven champion Ukrainian weightlifter. She won silver at the 2009 World Championship in Goyang, South Korea, and also won awards in different stages of European Championships in 2009, 2014 and 2015.
In mid-July 2016, the International Olympic Committee ruled Kalyna was disqualified from the 2012 Olympics in London, and ordered her to return the bronze medal from the 58-kg weightlifting event. Re-analysis of Kalyna’s samples from London resulted in a positive test for the prohibited substance Dehydrochlormethyl testosterone (turinabol).
The International Olympic Committee also ordered Ukrainian javelin thrower Oleksandr Pyatnytsya to return the silver medal he won at the 2012 London Olympics after the retested samples tested positive for the steroid turinabol. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the world governing body on athletics competitions, was asked to consider further sanctions against Pyatnytsia, including a possible two-year ban.
The 31-year-old was among four other athletes that were sanctioned on August 9 by the IOC, with a total of 98 athletes thus far caught in retests.
The retest allows for a reanalysis of samples for up to 10 years, using more advanced screening methods that previously may have tested negative.
Top-10 finishes
In rowing, Ukraine’s women’s quadruple sculls team (Olena Bryak, Anastasiia Kozhenkova, Ievgeniia Nimchenko and Daryna Verkhogliad), finished in fourth place (6:56.09 seconds) and the men’s quadruple sculls team (Ivan Dovgodko, Dmytro Mikhai, Artem Morozov and Oleksandr Nadtoka), finished in sixth place (6:16.30).
Maksym Dolhov and Oleksandr Horoshkovozov finished in sixth place in the men’s 10-meter synchronized platform dive with 421.98 points.
Ukraine’s men’s gymnastics team (Vladyslav Hryko, Ihor Radivilov, Maksym Semiankiv, Andrii Sienchkin and Oleh Vernyayev) finished in eighth place with a total score of 202.078 points. The team failed to compete on three apparatuses due to injury, specifically Semiankiv’s, and left many experts baffled.
Weightlifter Yuliya Paratova (48 kg) finished in eighth place with a combined total of 179 kg (84 kg in the snatch, fourth place; 95 kg in the clean and jerk, ninth place).
Shooter Oleh Tsarkov finished in eighth place (79.7 points) in the men’s 10-meter air rifle.
Ukrainian Canadian medals
Ukrainian Canadian Penny Oleksiak, 16, won silver in the women’s 100-meter butterfly (56.46 seconds) on August 7 of the Games, and then won two bronze medals – one in the women’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay (7:45.39 seconds) on August 10, and in the women’s 4×100-meter freestyle relay (3:32.89 seconds – 52.72 seconds individual time). Oleksiak set a world junior record at the Games in the 100-meter freestyle semifinal (52.72 seconds) and similarly in the butterfly. Oleksiak is also set to swim in the 4×100-meter medley relay.
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Ukrainian Olympic Team at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics during the opening ceremonies.