"I'm disgusted": Ukrainian champion tells how she put a Russian woman in her place at the 2024 Paralympics

Oksana Botorchuk, a track and field athlete of the Ukrainian Paralympic team, faced a provocation from a Russian rival during this year's Games in Paris. The Beijing 2008 champion said that the representative of the aggressor country was deliberately trying to make her angry to get her disqualified.

Botorchuk said this in an interview with NV.ua. According to our compatriot, the Russian woman first asked if they could shake hands, and then cynically congratulated Oksana on the birth of her child, who was born shortly after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion.

"She came up to me and asked: "Can I shake your hand? Or will it be like in Tokyo, where I'm not allowed to do that?" I said: "It's not that I don't want to shake your hand, I'm disgusted to talk to you," and I turned away and walked щаа, to which she said: "Congratulations on the birth of your third child." It was quite provocative because my son doesn't even know what a peaceful sky is. I found out about the pregnancy a week before the war, my son is growing up during the bombing, and I felt so sorry. I thought: "I'm going to kill you right here, right now, without leaving your side." I realized that this would be a disqualification," Botorchuk said.

At the 2024 Paralympics, the athlete won bronze in the 400 meters and silver in the 100 meters in the category for athletes who cannot see objects at a distance of more than two meters.

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