On March 2, in the early morning, the ground and windows shook in downtown Kharkiv. The bombs hissed before crashing with a deafening noise. One of them fell on an apartment building located 200 meters from Yelyzaveta Yakhno’s home.
She was sitting in the hallway outside the entrance to her apartment, the place that seemed to her the safest. Her boyfriend, her mother, her sister-in-law and her brother-in-law accompanied her, holding hands.
“We said to ourselves: ‘We hope we will survive'”, she confided last week to the National Institute of Sport (INS) of Quebec. “It was really scary. You think, “It could fall on my apartment and I could die instantly.” It was horrible. »
They decided to leave despite the potential presence of Russian soldiers who had attacked Ukraine’s second-largest city six days earlier. The first thing that Yelyzaveta slipped into her luggage was her bronze medal from the Tokyo Olympics, won the previous summer with the Ukrainian artistic swimming team. Then she took her pussy Asya.
The next morning, they put two large suitcases in the trunk of the car, the tank of which they had been able to fill by miracle the day before. They added warm blankets and pillows, not knowing where they would sleep the following days. There was just enough room for Asya’s cage and that of the in-laws’ dog.
They left the city center with fear in their stomachs.
We were afraid of being shot just by driving. We decided to go for it anyway. There were really a lot of people on the road. It was bumper to bumper.
Yelyzaveta Yakhno
The quintet took 11 hours to reach Kremenchouk, in the center of the country, a journey that usually takes three hours. They spent ten days there before heading for the greater region of Lviv, a western city where they would be safer.
“At that time, it was very difficult to find accommodation. People were staying in schools, hospitals, everywhere. It was full, there was no more room for new arrivals. Friends of friends had gone to Poland. They offered us to stay with them. We were very lucky. »
Yelyzaveta Yakhno spent six months on the outskirts of Lviv, then spared from Russian attacks, but under frequent warning sirens announcing possible bombardments. “It was safe, but we had to stay home. »
Living on her savings, the ex-swimmer took care of the household while the others had found makeshift jobs.
“I tried to learn English with an online teacher. I continued to exercise, to walk. I cleaned the apartment, I cooked, basic things. »
Like thousands of compatriots, her 23-year-old boyfriend, a former water polo player, offered to volunteer in the army, but his application was not accepted.
“Thank God he was not accepted. Now he understands that it is really dangerous and that he can seriously hurt himself. He has no military experience, but he is a man and a switch goes off in his brain. He felt he had to be brave and defend his country. »
This was not Yakhno’s first exile in his own country. In 2014, she was 15 or 16 when she left her hometown of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine after Russian forces invaded neighboring Crimea.
Without her mother, who joined her only three years later, she joined the national artistic swimming team, whose training center was located in Kharkiv. The Lokomotiv sports complex was destroyed by a Russian bombardment on September 2.
PHOTO FROM INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT @SUSPILNE.KHARKIV
On the night of September 2, the Russian army struck the Lokomotiv sports complex in the Kholodnohirsky district of Kharkiv.
“I was living with teammates from Donetsk and our coach. It’s been a long time. I couldn’t see my mother for a year. It was really difficult for a girl my age. »
The following year, she won three bronze medals at the first European Games. In 2017, she burst onto the biggest stage with four podium finishes at the FINA World Championships in Budapest, taking silver in the team free routine.
A year later, she finished tied for first in the World Series standings in both solo and duet. FINA crowned her artistic swimmer of the year.
At the Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021, Yelyzaveta Yakhno received bronze in the team event.
PHOTO FROM INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT @YAKHNOLIZA
Yelyzaveta Yakhno (right) met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after his bronze medal at the Games.
On her return, she met President Volodymyr Zelensky, ex-comedian and actor elected a year earlier. He did not yet wear the beard or the khaki military clothes that characterize him today.
“He comes from comedy, but he now has a brave heart and a very rigorous character,” she noted.
Alongside his sport, Yakhno earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education and sport, specializing in training activities, at the Kharkiv State Academy of Physical Culture, one of the oldest management universities in the world. sports in Ukraine. She went on to earn a master’s degree in sports psychology before the Russian invasion began.
What next?
Aged 23 at the time, she did not know if she would continue her career as an athlete. The desire to start a family and the departure of several teammates convinced her to hang up her jersey. “I wanted to move on and learn new things. »
For a month, she coached the national youth team (13-15 years old), without really knowing if it was really her desire to embark on this second career. The start of the war and his exile precipitated things.
In the spring, the coach of the Canadian team, the Hungarian-born Gábor Szauder, invited her to a training camp in Budapest for the World Championships presented at the same place the following summer.
The experience went well and she received an offer to join the coaching staff for Worlds. In the Hungarian capital, she accompanied Quebecer Audrey Lamothe, 17, who twice finished in the top 10 in solo.
“She is young, but I can see that she has a lot of character and that she wants to improve every day,” boasted the coach Ukrainian.
Yakhno had an emotional reunion with her former national teammates, who were training in Italy at the time. She was also able to reconnect with her mother, who now lives in Germany.
Prior to her return to Ukraine, Yakhno was offered an assistant coaching position with Canada Artistic Swimming. “I had to think about it. It was a tough decision to join Canada because it’s really far from Ukraine and my boyfriend can’t cross borders like all men between 18 and 60 years old.
“But the occasion was good and we don’t know when the war will end. I hope it will be very soon. I noted that Canada was a safe country. »
On September 17, Yakhno arrived in Montreal for the first time in her life, without her cat Asya. She lives with a Ukrainian immigrant who has lived in Canada for 22 years. The accommodation is within walking distance of the Olympic Stadium and the INS, a place that inspires her and within which she feels “the power and energy of sport”.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Yelyzaveta Yakhno
The welcome is very good and the people are so nice and happy. Montreal is very diverse and international. There are many different nationalities. Sometimes we feel like we don’t know where we are. There are people from Turkey, France, Ukraine.
Yelyzaveta Yakhno
The red and yellow colors of autumn, non-existent in her native country, charmed her. “It’s so fantastic, it’s like a fairy tale! enthused the one who discovered Mount Royal.
Winter, which she knows well, does not frighten her. The arrival of the cold season, however, makes him think of his family.
“I still worry about the war in Ukraine. Today there was no light or electricity in cities like Lviv and Kyiv. They are closed and that’s it. Of course, there is no hot water or electricity. Our national team, now based in Kyiv, therefore trains in a cold pool. Can you imagine winter is coming? »
She says she is “still in shock” because of the aftermath of this “stupid, stupid and crazy war”.
What does she think of the Russians? “I am very angry because no one from the Russian national team has written to us offering support. They say: “Oh, we don’t know, the news is different in Ukraine and in Russia. We believe in our news.” We had a normal relationship with them. At the Olympics, we encouraged each other. »
The release of Kherson last week had him “crying all morning”.
She misses the competition a little, but she is happy to discover the sport from another angle.
For the photo, Yelyzaveta Yakhno donned a Canadian Olympic team jersey, which she wears proudly. His swimmers sometimes ask him questions about the war: “They just don’t understand how big a deal it is. I’m glad our daughters don’t know those kinds of feelings. »
One-year contract in hand, she obviously has no idea what awaits her next. She misses her boyfriend and dreams of seeing Gorcafe 1654 again, her favorite place in Kharkiv whose name refers to the year the city was founded.