Training for the Olympic Games in a country at war: for two years this has been the daily life of Maryna and Vladyslava Aleksiiva, two Ukrainian twins who qualified for the Olympics in artistic swimming.
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Smiles in the water during the choreographies, the search for the perfect gesture like all swimmers. But stories of war are never far away in the minds of Maryna and Vladyslava Aleksiiva, two 22-year-old Ukrainian women qualified for the Paris Games in artistic swimming. The twins swam their technical program last weekend, at the brand new Saint-Denis Aquatic Center, to music entitled War Stories. They named their free duo Up and Downups and downs like their lives for two years.
“It’s difficult to control your emotions, to stay positive, explains Vladyslava Aleksiiva. Tout on time, I forgot to turn off my phone’s notifications about Ukraine alerts and it’s stressing me out.” “There was thunder the other day in Paris and it scared us, we were wondering: but what is it? ?”adds his sister.
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They fled their hometown in February 2022
Maryna and Vladyslava, nicknamed Vlada, do not have preparation like the others. When the war broke out in February 2022, they fled their hometown, Kharkiv, 30 kilometers from the Russian border. “We only had a suitcase with summer clothes because we had to go on an internship to Türkiyeremembers Maryna. The last thing we took when we left our apartment was our Olympic medals.” This bronze medal that they won with Ukraine in the ballet event during the Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021.
Their country left behind, they head to Italy with the artistic swimming team and its coaches. But after six months, they return home, to Kharkiv then to kyiv. “We could have stayed abroad but we have all our loved ones in Ukraine: our parents, our grandparents, my husbandsays Vlada Aleksiiva. It’s less stressful to be all together, to know how they are experiencing the situation in Ukraine.”
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With training in an unheated pool in Kharkiv or a swimming pool next to which a missile crashed in the capital: the risks are everywhere. “It’s like in a horror film: you’re in the swimming pool, you hear an explosion and you have to run for cover, sometimes without knowing where to godevelops Maryna, the most talkative. For anyone else this would be an abnormal situation but for us it has become normal. And we have to train in these conditions.”
The two sisters will stay a few days in the south of France, between Nîmes and Montpellier, before a new competition in Canada at the end of the month. Then it will be time to return to Ukraine in June. “Everything is difficult for usinsists Vlada. Getting out of Ukraine, going back, training. But we want to stay positive, we want to believe in our country, in our soldiers and everything will be fine.”
“They are truly fighters,” relates Louis Villiers, documentary filmmaker who followed them for 11 months [le documentaire intitulé Les Sirènes de Kyiv sera diffusé le 18 juillet sur Canal+ Docs].
“In a scene we shot during the Ukrainian championships in December, there was a bomb threat and the entire audience, including their loved ones, took shelter in the basement of the swimming pool. The swimmers were left alone in the pool even though it was dangerous. It’s a situation we don’t see in any other country.”
Louis Villiers, documentary filmmaker who followed them for 11 monthsat franceinfo
“There is a real contrast between the grace, the beauty of their sport and the violence that surrounds themcontinues the co-director of the documentary Alexandra Guiral. We almost wonder why they continue when a missile risks falling on the swimming pool or their apartment. It’s a way for them to live their lives. They really have a form of resilience, like all Ukrainians.”
Maryna and Vlada’s biggest dream: to win a new medal in Paris this summer, for them and for Ukraine. “This is our main mission: to represent Ukraine and win for it, to show that it is a courageous nation”, insists Vlada. And his sister, as often, adds: “We want to show it to the whole world through our sport.”
In a break of a few days at the Olympic Aquatic Center which they will return to this summer, Vlada and Maryna Aleksiiva displayed an often melancholic smile. Leaving with a silver medal in the free duo event, they want to see it as a sign of their next success.
The difficult preparation of two Ukrainian swimmers qualified for Paris 2024. Report by Jérôme Val.