Four years ago, at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London on July 27 through August 12, Ukraine finished with 20 medals (six gold, five silver and nine bronze) with a 12th-place finish in the medals standings and 14th in the gold medal standings. A total of 238 athletes (119 men and 119 women) in 21 sports were sent by the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine.
As with every Olympic Games, records are broken and new firsts are set for each participating country. For Ukraine, there were a lot of firsts, including Ukraine’s first Olympic gold medal in rowing, on August 1, 2012, when Kateryna Tarasenko, Anastasiia Kozhenkova, Yana Dementieva and Nataliya Dovhodko beat Germany and the U.S.A. in the women’s 2,000-meter final. With a time of 6:35.93, the team won by a three-second lead against its nearest competitor.
Other gold medalists included boxers Oleksandr Usyk and Vasyl Lomachenko, 200-meter canoe sprinter Yuri Cheban, weightlifter Oleksiy Trokhtiy and epée fencer Yana Shemyakina. Silver medalists included boxer Denys Berinchyk, kayaker Inna Osypenko-Radomska (500-meters, 200-meters sprint), wrestler Valerii Andriitsev (96 kg), javelin thrower Oleksandr Pyatnytsya. Bronze medalists included boxers Taras Shelestyuk and Oleksandr Hvozdyk, the women’s 4×100-meter relay team of Yelizaveta Bryzhina, Olesya Povh, Hrytsyna Stuy and Mariya Ryemyen, weightlifter Yulia Kalina (58 kg), triple jumper Olha Saladuha, gymnast Ihor Radivilov (vault), saber fencer Olha Kharlan and air pistol shooter Olena Kostevych (10-meters and 25-meters).
The 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, run from August 5 to 21, with Ukraine being independently represented for the sixth time. This year, Ukraine is sending 202 athletes (86 men and 116 women), who will be competing in 22 sports – archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, canoeing, cycling, diving, equestrian, fencing, gymnastics, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, synchronized swimming, table tennis, triathlon, weightlifting and wrestling. Twelve medalists from 2012 are to compete in the 2016 Games, including Bryzhina, Povh, Stuy and Ryemyen, as well as Saladuha, Cheban, Shemyakina, Kharlan, Radivilov, Kozhenkova, Kostevych and Andriitsev.
Source: “At London Olympics, Ukraine collects six medals – two gold, four bronze,” by Matthew Dubas, The Ukrainian Weekly, August 5, 2012.