“Some cry during the night and some of them had red eyes,” the Ukrainian Paralympic Committee (UPC) president, Valerii Sushkevych, tells PEOPLE.
But despite this anxiety and fear, the Ukrainian athleteswon a record 29 medals, landing the country second in the overall medal count.
“It was so heavy, very difficult because every day, me and my athletes looked on the news, phoning to their mother, father, wife, or husband, daughter. ‘Are you living? Are you okay in this moment?’ " he says. “It’s really very difficult to mobilize and concentrate on the competition.”
“I am very astonished,” he says, “that my sportsmen get those results after not sleeping, even one night.”
Valerii Sushkevych and members of the team.Bartlomiej Zborowski
“Members of my team [have seen videos], terrible videos with dead people, dead men and women,” Sushkevych says. “They look at many videos with dead children. All understanding [that this] is so, so dangerous. But I can’t stop my athletes from [returning] to Ukraine.”
The Russians also destroyed Harach’s home in Irpin, a city near Kyiv. “I will stay some time in Poland,” she says, “and after this, I hope that war will stop and I will be back home. All of us are thinking about how to come to our homes.”
As for skier Dmytro Suiarko, who placed third in the middle distance vision impaired event and had said his house in Chernihiv"was bombed and destroyed,“Harach says that while there was an explosion near his home, and it was still standing. Yet, “any time it could fall down. It’s dangerous to be near it.”
Valerii Sushkevych.Bartlomiej Zborowski
“Meeting for the village of the competition they say, ‘Hello, we are together. We must be together,’ " says Sushkevych. “And, ‘We fight against war.’ "
Each medal, however, also felt like a small win over Putin and his invading forces, beyond a sports victory, notes Sushkevych.
“Some of our sportsmen say, ‘I am soldier today in Beijing. Soldier against war. I’m not a killer, but I am a soldier and I must make results for my country,’ " he says.
“It’s the fight for peace, this result,” he continues, “and make hope for our people in Ukraine that we may be victorious in the war.”
However, the fighting continues some three weeks after Russian forces launched a large-scale invasion on Feb. 24 — the first major land conflict in Europe in decades.
source: people.com
