Beleniuk’s gold highlights wrestlers’ medal wins
The fourth day of August 2021 will go down in the annals as a momentous day for Ukraine at the Summer Olympics. Team Ukraine won four medals this day, including their first gold, a second silver medal and two more bronze, giving the nation a double digit total medal haul (11). A whopping three medals were earned in the sport of wrestling, specifically Zhan Beleniuk’s gold (87 kg) and Parviz Nasibov’s silver (67 kg) in the Greco-Roman discipline, and Iryna Koliadenko’s bronze (62 kg) in the women’s freestyle competition. Marta Fedina and partner Anastasiya Savchuk won a bronze medal in artistic swimming duet.
Beleniuk topped his previous best silver medal in 2016 by winning gold in the Greco-Roman middleweight division, beating Hungary’s Viktor Lorincz in the final. The two-time world champion and Ukraine’s first black member of Parliament was in total control, winning 5-1. The elated 30-year-old celebrated by performing an impromptu Hopak dance on the mat with a Ukrainian flag draped around him. Beleniuk came out strong at the start and profited from his opponent’s weakness toward the end of their match.
Nasibov won a silver medal in the men’s Greco-Roman 67kg after he defeated Denmark’s Fredrik Bjerrehuus, Russian Artem Surkov and Egypt’s Mohamed Elsayed, before losing to Iran’s Mohammad Gerael in the final. The 22-year-old was born in Azerbaijan, but has adopted Ukraine as his home country.
Koliadenko won her bronze medal in freestyle wrestling, beating Latvia’s Anastasia Grigorieva. She defeated Nigeria’s Aminat Adeniyi and China’s Jia Long by falls, prior to losing on points and technical superiority to Kyrgyzstan’s Aisuluu Tyuybekova.
Koliadenko outpointed her Latvian opponent 3-1 in the bronze medal match.
Facebook.com/noc-ukr.org
Synchronized swimmers Marta Fedina and Anastasiya Savchuk won the bronze medal in women’s artistic swimming duet.
Record-setting swimmer Romanchuk a double medalist
At times, elite athletic performances can appear to be almost effortless. However, success can come with a cost. There are the physical demands that come with intensive training and competition. There are also psychological and emotional stresses that are not in the public view. Adding to the pressure of this year’s Olympics, which were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and are being staged without fans and with strict health and safety protocols, is the worldwide need for good news. During the pandemic, nations are hungry for a good story, hungry for heroes, hungry for triumphs over adversity. Ukraine certainly qualifies as a nation hungry for all of the above. Swimmer Mykhailo Romanchuk is an Olympic record-setter, a two-time Olympic medalist, and Ukraine’s triumphant new Olympic hero.
Romanchuk, swimming in lane No. 4, had a reaction time of 0.72 seconds, total time of 7:42.33 seconds and was 0.46 seconds behind first place finisher American Robert Finke, to win a bronze medal in the men’s 800-meter freestyle event on July 29. Romanchuk had earlier set a new Olympic record with his time of 7:41.28 seconds in his semifinal heat. His all-out effort in the semifinal proved a bit too challenging to match.
Romanchuk added a silver medal in the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle event on August 1 to go with his 800-meter freestyle. Romachuk’s time was 14:40.66 seconds, 1.26 seconds behind gold medal winner Bobby Finke of the United States. The 24-year-old Ukrainian’s late surge enabled him to outrace all but the American to the final wall. It had been 17 years since a Ukrainian swimmer won an Olympic medal. On a personal note, this was the first time in three years Romanchuk got the better of his British rival, Florian Wellbrook.
Svitolina earns bronze in women’s singles
Elina Svitolina was seeded fourth entering the women’s tennis competition at the Tokyo Olympics. Her bronze medal victory proved she was at least third best among the entrants in singles play. Her path to the bronze went through Germany’s Laura Siegemund, 6-3, 5-7, 6-4, Austria’s Ajia Tomljanovic, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, Greece’s Maria Sakkari, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, and Italy’s Camila Giorgi, 6-4, 6-4, before a semifinal loss to Czech Marketa Vondrousova, 3-6, 1-6. Svitolina then rebounded with a gutsy 1-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 bronze-medal match win over Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina in which she came all the way back from a trouncing in her initial set.
“Coming here, for sure my goal was to win a gold medal, and it was extremely tough to lose in the semifinals and then try to regroup and come again against a top player who is playing really good,” Svitolina said, as reported by the ITF website. “To win such a big battle for the bronze medal definitely means the world to me. Everyone in Ukraine is watching – we don’t win so many medals, you know – so for sure, it’s very special for me and for Ukraine.”
Svitolina and men’s tennis star Gael Monfils exchanged wedding vows prior to the start of the Summer Olympics, but their honeymoon was put on hold due to their participation at the Games. Monfils, representing France, was eliminated in first round action.
More bronze medal wins
Lviv’s Alla Cherkasova won a bronze medal in freestyle wrestling (68 kg), defeating Rio Olympics champion Sara Dosho from Japan. After losing her semifinal bout to reigning world champion Tamyra Mensah-Stock of the United States, she rebounded to pin hometown favorite Dosho. The pairing of Marta Fedina and Anastasiya Savchuk brought home yet another bronze medal in artistic swimming’s women’s duet. The duo beat out Japan for the bronze with a combined score of 189.4620. This was the first artistic swimming medal ever won by Ukraine at the Olympic Games. Canada’s Penny Oleksiak captured her seventh career medal on August 1, winning bronze in the women’s 4×100-meter medley relay. This medal win made her Canada’s most decorated Olympic athlete of all time. The relay was the final women’s swimming event of the Olympics, meaning Oleksiak made Canadian history on her final chance to do so in Tokyo.
Other noteworthy Ukrainian performances
Viktoriia Us finished seventh in the canoeing slalom C-1 event with a final time of 122.12 seconds, identical to her semifinal race time. She had finished eighth in the women’s K-1 with a final time of 111.85 seconds. In women’s mountain biking, Ukrainian Yana Belomoyna ranked eighth with a time of 1:19:40 seconds in women’s cross-country. The men’s pair of Oleh Serbin and Oleksiy Sereda ended up sixth in the diving’s 10-meter synchronized platform event with a total of 400.44 points. In men’s artistic gymnastics, Ukraine’s foursome placed seventh in the team event (floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar) with a final total of 246.394 points. The team was made up of Illia Kovtun, Petro Pakhnyuk, Ihor Radivilov and Yevhen Yudenkov. In judo, Yakiv Khammo (+100 kg) came so close to a medal, losing his bronze-medal match 00-10, and finishing fifth overall in his weight class. The men’s lightweight double sculls in rowing saw the Ukrainian tandem of Ihor Khmara and Stanislav Kovalov put up a final time of 6:16.92 seconds, good for ninth overall. In addition to Romanchuk’s bronze medal in the 800-meter freestyle swim, fellow-countryman Serhiy Frolov had a final time of 7:45.11 seconds to finish sixth. Frolov swam to an overall eighth place showing in the men’s 1,500-meter freestyle, again competing in the final race with Romanchuk, the silver medalist. Wrestler Lenur Temirov was stopped in his pursuit of a bronze medal, losing to China’s Sailike Walihan. In the Greco-Roman 60-kg bronze medal match the final score was 1-1, but Temirov lost on points. The 31-year-old Crimean Tatar was born in Uzbek, but competes for his adopted nation of Ukraine.
Tokyo tidbits: As of August 4, Ukraine had won a total of 11 medals: one gold, two silver and eight bronze, the same total they accumulated at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio. Ukrainian wrestler Quedjau Nhabali was disqualified in the round of 16 judo competition for an apparent banned move, the elbow lock. Nhabali disagreed with the decision, claiming his opponent, Uzbekistan’s Davlat Bobonov, screamed loudly, influencing the judges present at the match. Nhabali insisted his move was a simple swoop and not a joint lock.