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BLUE AND YELLOW WINDS IN NAGANO

10 February, 00:00

The grand opening of XVIII Winter Olympic Games took place in Nagano, Japan last Saturday. The Ukrainian national team can be easily noticed even among the other teams from 72 countries. There are 56 athletes, who will compete in 10 kinds of sports. In particular, Valentyna Tserbe from Chernihiv oblast, a bronze medalist of the last Olympic Games in Lillehammer is a member of biathlon female team, and she is not the only team member with international titles. There is also a three-time world champion Olena Zubrilova from the small town of Shostka, Sumy oblast. Among figure skaters there are such well-known Ukrainian athletes as gold medalists of the Europe '93 skating championship Dmytro Dmytrenko and continental championship prize winners Olena Lyashenko and Yuliya Lavrenchyk from Kyiv and Vyacheslav Zahorodnyk from Odesa. Ukrainians puts much hopes on toboggan, female ski racers, and free style aces, all of them have been leaders in international competitions.

The Ukrainian government promised financial awards to the Olympic medalists. For instance, Ukrainian Prime Minister Valery Pustovoitenko announced a HR 100,000 award for the gold in Nagano. He has not also forgotten about the disabled participants in the Special Olympics. Kyiv mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko hinted that Nagano champions and prize winners could get ready to move to Kyiv. A number of well-known companies have also announced prizes for Ukrainian athletes, for instance Mazda Motors Ukraine will present Nagano gold medalists with automobiles.

Ukraine occupies fifteenth position among 67 countries, considering all Olympic Winter Games, according to the Honorary President of the Ukrainian Skiing Federation, professor at the University of Physical Culture Serhiy Fomin. More success can be achieved in Nagano.

"I become more and more convinced that it is impossible to predict who is going to win the relay race," says Serhiy Fomin. "At the first People's Winter Sports Meeting our student Hryhory Kozin outstripped all the Russian aces for 2.48 minutes, though he was not the greatest one in the ski cross country. Ivan Byakov, the president of Ukrainian Biathlon Federation, hardly made it to the top 20 before Innsbruck in 1976. But the whole team appealed to management: "Let him compete. As you know, he won himself two Olympic gold medals. To cut the story short, I will say that I believe in pleasant surprises in Nagano.

"I would not want to boast, but one of my students, Vasyl Karlenko, has developed his own training method for the female biathlon. I always said only home-grown specialists will help us."

Reuters photo:
Yelena Petrova of Sumy won Ukraine's first Nagano gold medal in the 15 kilometer individual biathlon competition on February 9

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