Ukrainian athletes train between bomb threats

There are just over 60 of them qualified for the Paris Olympic Games. More than 3,000 athletes or coaches have joined the armed forces. 400 died in combat.

In Ukrainestadiums, gymnasiums and the velodromes have been transformed in refugee shelters and are therefore impractical. Swimming pools and ice rinks were destroyed by bombing. Psychological pressure is permanent: worry for loved ones, interrupted sleep, interruptions by sirens. For example, on Tuesday morning, in kyiv, there were two big ballistic missile alerts. In these cases, you have to leave everything alone and run to shelter for a few minutes or a few hours. You never know how long this alert will last. And these conditions are also valid for high-level athletes.

Despite all these difficulties, a little more than sixty qualified. And Pduring the Games, for these Ukrainian athletes, the war will obviously be constantly present in the background. More than 3,000 athletes or coaches joined the armed forces, 400 are died in combat. It is to them that the competitors will dedicate their medals. Some judokas even sewed a small yellow and blue flag on their kimono. Perhaps also, because their sport is that of Vladimir Putin.

The great vagueness of the participation of Russian athletes

THE IOC, which has banned Russia and Belarus as states, offers athletes to participate as individuals, under a neutral flag, without a national anthem, without a parade during the opening ceremony. The IOC also puts several conditions, such as not having supported the war, not being linked to the army or security services. Moscow considers these constraints humiliating, but could send, despite everything, around forty athletes to Paris. For its part, Ukraine is still having trouble digesting the decision, so it regularly releases lists of names of Russian athletes who, according to it, have a link with the invasion.

Emmanuel Macron assured, on April 15, that he wanted to make a “Olympic Truce”, to silence the guns during the competition. But PFor the moment, this proposal is being received with lip service in Moscow. Lhe Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, even explains that taking a break from the fighting would give Ukraine time to regroups its forces and rearms. Emmanuel Macron will request the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, who has already tried to put this truce in place on the occasion of the Winter Olympics in 2022, and who will be in Paris in a few weeks.