(Paris) Psychological impact, disrupted training, fear of combat and forced moves… Ukrainian para sportspeople have been preparing for the Paris Paralympic Games, with the war in the background for two years, while their delegation was among the most successful during the last editions.
“The main goal of each day was to stay alive,” Danylo Chufarov, 34, told AFP, remembering the days and nights spent under the bombs with his wife in Mariupol in 2022.
Like the Paralympic 400m swimming vice-champion in category S13 (significant visual impairment) from Beijing-2008, the Ukrainian headliners, medal-winning at the Paris Games, saw their preparation take a back seat in February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
The yellow and blue delegation often looks good on the Paralympic scene: sixth in the medal table in Tokyo in 2021, it had even taken third place five years earlier in Rio with 117 medals (41 gold).
” We stay “
Like Chufarov, Mykhailo Serbin, 20 years old and Paralympic champion in the 100m backstroke S11 (visual impairment) suffered “ten days of permanent bombing” in Kharkiv, before leaving for another city.
“My coach and I were in the same state of mind: ‘We stay, we work, and we win, whatever happens,’” he told AFP.
Serbin says he has the support of his family: “they didn’t want me to abandon what is my reason for being.” The young swimmer assures “not to regret staying in Ukraine”.
“Who can know what would happen elsewhere, what trials would await us there? Being at home is always better,” judges the back specialist.
But staying in the country means having to deal with a war that entered its third year on February 24. “Recently, when we arrived for training, the city was attacked, we had to go down to the bomb shelter and wait for the bombing to end,” he said.
For Chufarov, triple world champion in Manchester in 2023, 15 years after his two Paralympic medals in Beijing, the hell experienced in Mariupol, which fell into the hands of the Russians in May 2022, had “a huge impact on our health”.
“During this period, all our thoughts were focused on our survival,” says the swimmer, before adding: “Those who managed to survive became different people, and that cannot change again. »
According to the Ukrainian authorities, the siege of Mariupol (February to May 2022), a large port city today under Russian control, alone left at least 25,000 dead, buried in mass graves.
“In addition to stress and mental overload, there was a lack of sleep, food and drinking water,” explains the thirty-year-old who fled the city in southern Ukraine with his partner.
He then spent six months without training: “it no longer seemed to make sense,” he confides.
Tears and medals
And even far from Mariupol, the war continued to disrupt his training. “Frequent air attacks and missiles made it sometimes impossible to go to the swimming pool or gym,” he describes.
Andrii Demchuk, Paralympic wheelchair fencing champion in 2016 in Rio, preferred to leave the country, heading to Poland and Warsaw.
The 36-year-old swordsman, however, participated in the war effort in his own way, by interacting with soldiers who returned mutilated from the front.
“Above all, I was there to communicate, and to try to gain the trust of the soldiers, so that they would talk to me about amputation, prostheses, sport. […] “, he told AFP.
“In my opinion, the biggest problem that amputee soldiers have to face is understanding that we can continue to live and that an almost worry-free life is possible,” continues the fencer, who will compete at the National Championships. Europe planned in France in March.
“War adds an emotional context” to competitions, he believes. “Almost every medal comes with tears because you understand that many of your relatives and friends will not see this victory and will not be able to celebrate it with you. »
And Andrii Demchuk concludes: “All victories are good to take for Ukraine from now on, on the front line as well as in the world of sport”.