"They were paralyzed": why Ukrainians were left without awards at the finish of the Olympics and where the judges held us back

After a lackluster start to the 2024 Olympics and an encouraging middle, I really wanted Ukrainian athletes to catch up at the finish line of the Paris Games, especially since there were plenty of people to cheer for and awards to win in the last few days, especially on August 10. There was Oleksii Sereda in diving from the 10-meter tower, the Alexieva sisters in synchronized swimming, and, of course, the final of Tokyo 2020 freestyle wrestling medalist Iryna Koliadenko. But it didn't go as we had planned...

As a result, only Koliadenko climbed to the podium over the weekend, as it could not be otherwise. But she also left the carpet disappointed, because she was hoping for a different medal.

CANAL DRAMA. All our failures began on Saturday morning on the Ver-sur-Marne Canal, where the individual medals in the 500-meter canoe were being played out. Ukraine was betting on Liudmyla Luzan, the medalist of the last Olympics and the 2022 World Champion in this discipline, and the also titled Anastasia Rybachok, who had won silver in the double sculls the day before .

The girls didn't do very well in the preliminary heats, but few people could have imagined that they wouldn't qualify for the finals at all. Especially after the second place the day before, where they demonstrated an incredibly powerful finish. But in the end, our canoeists were sensationally left out of the medal race in the 1/2 finals. And then Liudmyla didn't even take the start in the B final.

Later, it was reported that Luzan felt discomfort in her back after the semifinals and refused to compete. The coaching staff decided not to risk her health again and decided to take care of the athlete. But it is clear that for an athlete of her level, there are only prize-winning places, and all the rest do not matter.

As for Rybachok, she has only recently returned from maternity leave, which she took as a medalist at the 2020 Olympics. And in Paris, she had to leave her boat and compete in someone else's because the judges didn't like the inscription "I am Ukrainian."

"It turned out that you can write the country, but not 'I am Ukrainian' or political positions. Unfortunately, these are ICF rules, and they were in place long before these Olympic Games. We did not know, and it so happened that that boat was not allowed. I gave Anastasiia mine," Luzan said.

But Liudmyla's medal boat from the 2020 Olympics was not the same for Anastasia in Paris.

JUMP FOR 8. When at the beginning of the Olympics Oleksii Sereda was competing with Kyrylo Boliukh for the Paris medals in synchronized 10-meter tower and they missed out on bronze medals, it seemed that by the end of the Games the 18-year-old Mykolaiv athlete might be able to jump. Before the competition in France, Oleksii had not had enough practice due to a hand injury. He himself admitted that he started jumping the program only a month before the Olympics.

However, after his fifth place in the synchronized skating, he noted that difficulties do not frighten or break him, but, on the contrary, can spur him on. And we all believed that this extremely gifted guy, a winner of the European Games and a medalist at the World Championships, might be lucky in Paris. But, as Sereda himself later commented, the miracle did not happen. He was wrong and took eighth place in the final of the 10-meter tower jump, scoring 426.90 points.

"It was a bad result, I could have done much better. I have a record of 530 points, now I'm 100 points less. Of course, I'm a little disappointed. I'm ashamed of myself. The only thing I liked was the preliminaries. From the unexpected: right now, at 10 meters, everyone is falling down, falling. The Chinese guy made two mistakes, and I've never seen anything like that in my life," Oleksii said.

And it's hard to blame him for anything, because because of the injury, the Ukrainian didn't prepare as the coaching staff had planned: "My arm hurts, but I can jump. I have already performed individual jumps here. The result was predictable, and I think the coaches thought the same. No miracle happened."

But the young European diving champion is only 18 years old, so I really believe that in four years at the Los Angeles Games he will not give up his best. If only there were no injuries...

TAPES OF DISCORD. In parallel with the diving team, only half an hour away, rhythmic gymnasts were competing for medals in the group competition of the 2024 Olympics. Our girls got off to a great start and, at the end of the first rotation, were in second intermediate place, second only to China, which is already dictating its terms here.

This could have been a very special award for Mariia Vysocanska, as the father of the two-time European gymnastics champion was able to escape the war with Russia to support his daughter at the competition. Oleh Vysoczanskiy traveled by train to Kyiv and from there to Lviv. At the same time, his wife and mother Maria was buying tickets to Paris.

"I was crying so much, you can't imagine, because they weren't supposed to let my dad go. After the performance, I found them, saw them, and my mom and dad were waving to me. Honestly, I didn't even expect it to happen. Miracles do happen, they happen to us - the main thing is to believe in them," the athlete admitted.

Unfortunately, Maria's teammates could not withstand the stress of the competition and made a mistake in the next exercise: during the jump, the ball hit the gymnast, the ribbon got tangled, and then one of the athletes missed two elements, which resulted in a low score and the final seventh place.

"The hoops were done very well. But two of them, Kira Shyrykina and Alina Melnyk, have paralysis. They were paralyzed: they could not react. One is 16 years old and the other is older. It didn't work out. If they had done everything, they would have won a medal. Because they are a really strong team, they have everything. But alas. Honestly, Vysochenska and Bayeva were on the same level. And even Peremeta. But the other two were stressed. It's a pity," Iryna Deriugina told Suspilne Sport.

In the neighborhood in Saint-Denis, the Ukrainian duo of artistic swimming Maryna and Vlada Aleksiyiv and high jumper Oleg Doroshchuk were starting the evening program. The Kharkiv girls had already won the World Cup this season and were going to make the program even more difficult in order to add the bronze medal from Tokyo 2020 to the Paris 2024 award.

But apparently, our girls have not yet fully grasped the new rules, which keep changing. And although the audience was delighted with the Ukrainians' performances, the judges found their shortcomings and, based on the results of the two programs, placed them only in fifth place with a score of 538.6684 points. Wang Liuyi and Wang Chenyi of China became the champions of the 2024 Olympics in the duet with a total of 566.4783 points.

"We are satisfied because we did our best for ourselves and our country. If you look at it objectively, both yesterday and today were our best performances. And our coach was also satisfied. We gave it our all. And we were pleased to hear from others that we had the most beautiful program and looked the best of all. That's why we won the Audience Award," the sisters said.

"We don't understand the scores, let the judges decide. We are sorry not only for ourselves but also for the Austrian duo. We were sure they would be second after China. The Austrians really performed much better than the representatives of the Netherlands and Great Britain," the Ukrainians added.

"KAYFOVO". At the Stade de France, Oleh Doroshchuk did everything he could to take on the world's best high jumpers. The 22-year-old athlete even set a personal best of 2.31 meters. However, this was only enough for sixth place, which the Ukrainian is happy with, as it was his debut at the Olympics, which he called "high."

"It's very exciting. I set a personal record. At first, I was jumping around like this... And then I jumped up and down, and realized that I could get a personal best. But it was also possible to take 2.34 meters. I guess I relaxed a little bit," Oleh believes.

Hamish Kerr became the new Olympic champion in this discipline, defeating the American in the gold medal round, winning the head-to-head competition at a height of 2.34 meters.

The final event of the Olympics for Ukraine was wrestling. How much I wanted Iryna Koliadenko to win her coveted gold medal! After all, three years ago in Tokyo, she was prevented from competing by an unexpected knee injury that occurred in Japan. And this year, just two months before the Games in Paris, she had to undergo surgery on the same leg again and speed up her recovery.

And while in the preliminary fights Koliadenko got into the swing of things and smeared her opponents on adrenaline, the next day in the final she was unable to properly tune in to the strong Japanese Sakura Motoki. In addition, the match started with a considerable delay and there was a long pause in the middle of the fight due to problems with the scoreboard. As a result, in the last minute, Iryna missed an attack to the legs, the Japanese quickly scored 12:1, and the Ukrainian decided not to risk her leg.

"For some reason, the very beginning of the fight was delayed, and in the semifinals there was a rather long break, and this threw me off my routine a bit. But the main thing, I think, is that I was psychologically not ready for this fight, I couldn't stand it. And no matter how much I wanted to, I just couldn't turn on that patience. Unfortunately, I only had enough for one day, yesterday I gave it my all. Yesterday I gave all my strength, all my emotions, and until today I have not had time to recover," Koliadenko said.

"I knew everything she was doing, but during the fight I didn't see her passes, I just couldn't keep up," the 26-year-old wrestler added.

By the way, Iryna does not like the current two-day Olympic format: "First of all, we weigh in for two days, and I have to hold the weight for two days, not one. They may have thought to divide the load a little bit, but when you tune in to the fight in one day, get into the swing of things, you go on a roll. And here you have fought for one day, and then you have to go to the next day with that fatigue from the previous day, recharge, get yourself going and start all over again."

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