Voices from… Ukrainian Pragelato
Mar 15 2006
The Ex Soviet Republic Dominates in the Biathlon
The domination of the Ukraine in Nordic skiing continues. In Pragelato, the sitting category (7.5km) in the men’s event saw silver go to Kostiuk and bronze to Khuzhnyak, while in the ladies’ event Olena Iurkovska won, with her third gold medal in this edition of the Paralympic Winter Games, ahead of co-nationals Tryfonova and Pavlenko.
We spoke to the multi Paralympic champion, who by now is used to these victories (in Salt Lake City 2002 she brought home 1 silver and 3 bronze), and asked her some questions.
Are you so unbeatable? Did you expect these results?
No, I don’t think I am so unbeatable and I never thought I’d win all these gold medals, but I am very happy, above all because I care about my country’s flag.
How much do you need to train in order to reach this level?
Very much, I trained up to 4-6 hours a day for these Paralympics.
And now, for the next events, how do you feel?
I prefer not to answer because I am superstitious. Anyway, all the distances are the same for me, I don’t have any problems. Today the weather was very beautiful, there wasn’t any wind, and also for this reason I shot well and skied so fast.
The president of the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee, Valeriy Sushkevich, with a disability, was also very happy because he had just heard that in Kiev the Parliament is approving a law, which he promoted (he is a member), favouring employment for people with a disability. Together with Sushkevich we tried to understand what is behind all these podiums.
The Ukraine is at the top of the Paralympic medals: what is the secret of its success?
I could list very many reasons, but I believe that the main ones are three. First of all there is the extraordinary team that we have built and I’m not only talking about the athletes, but particularly the trainers, coaches, assistants. Take into account the fact that it all started only ten years ago when we went to “learn” at the Paralympics in Lillehammer and Nagano. Today we know how to be very competitive, thanks also to the hard training that we make our athletes do. On the beaches of the Black Sea we have an avant-garde centre for sport for people with a disability, which also our Olympic Committee has asked to use. The second reason is certainly the Ukraine state education system, which foresees easy access to sport for people with a disability, starting from school. We are the only country in the world to have a system like this. We wanted it and were able to build it only after the end of the Soviet Union, when finally society began not to exclude people with a disability. This is probably the third reason for our success: the desire of people with a disability to finally come out into the open, after many years in the dark. We really have been “reborn”.
Silvia Bruno
AI
