At the Olympic swimming pool in kyiv, Ukraine, these two champions, twin sisters, are training for the Paris Olympics, despite the war. They tell franceinfo.
The Aleksiyiva sisters first left Karkhiv, their hometown, at the very beginning of the war: their training pool had just been destroyed. Quickly, Vladyslava and Maryna went to Italy for a few months, and then, when the situation in kyiv calmed down, they returned to the Ukrainian capital.
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Today, between two bomb threats, the swimmers, bronze medalists in artistic swimming in Tokyo three years ago, and three-time world champions, train at the Olympic swimming pool in Kiev, 500 days before the Olympics from Paris. As best they could. “It’s very hard to think about that when you hear the sirens, explain Vladyslava, the youngest. Sometimes you hear bombs falling not far from the pool. So we get out of the pool very quickly and we stop training. Besides, it’s hard to concentrate when you hear bad news. It’s not fair compared to other athletes.”
“Last month, we trained without electricity or hot water. We couldn’t work on our program with music. It’s very hard.”
“It’s very hard to think about that, she continues. Sometimes you hear bombs falling not far away. So we get out of the pool very quickly. It’s very difficult.”
Relations with the Russians have been strained
Irony of history: in artistic swimming, Russians and Ukrainians share, with the Chinese, most of the podiums. It’s a small community and the young women know each other very well. Although they are close, after the outbreak of the war, the exchanges became tense.
Today Maryna, the eldest, cannot imagine competing against a Russian athlete. “When the war started, girls texted me saying not to worry, that their country was going to save us, that their president was going to eradicate fascism, indignant Maryna. It happened a dozen times, I immediately thought they were crazy.”
“How can you imagine being next to people who support the war? Russia is a terrorist country that kills people, that destroys a lot of lives. How can you imagine that being possible?”
“When the war started, girls wrote to me telling me not to worry and that their country was going to save us from fascism. It’s crazy !”she gets annoyed.
And if the IOC approves the participation of Russian athletes, under a neutral banner, the two sisters assure it: they will boycott the Paris Games, and abandon their Olympic dream.