Olympic Dreams

By Volodymyr Kish

Like many millions, if not billions of other people, for the past several weeks I have tried to avoid the more serious aspects of life in our troubled world and taken the time to enjoy that quadrennial spectacle known as the Olympics.  It is a marvellous bit of escapist entertainment, though watching the world’s elite athletes does tend to remind me that my own physical state leaves much to be desired.  Nonetheless, armed with a large screen HD TV, copious amounts of wine and beer, and a fridge full of cheese, kobassa and other minimum preparation munchies, I revelled in being a couch barabolya for two weeks and indulged in watching sports I never watch except during Olympics time.

Despite the fact that the Olympics are theoretically supposed to be non-political, there is no doubt that most countries invest a lot of time and money in playing the game of one-upmanship to try and demonstrate the superiority of their nation above others.  It is a matter of great national honour.  The grand world powers such as the U.S., China, the Russian Federation, Germany, and others, use this as an opportunity to propagandize the supremacy of their political, economic and social systems.  The small countries, particularly in the developing world, use the Olympics as an opportunity to boost national pride and recognition on a crowded world stage.

Middling states such as Canada and Ukraine mostly try and preserve their niche in the pecking order and avoid embarrassment.  To this extent, the London Olympics were pretty predictable for these two countries that form the twin pillars of my own identity.  Both wound up living up or down to expectations depending on one’s perspectives.   Ukraine has participated in four summer Olympics, winning 23, 23, 23 and 27 medals respectively in prior games.  This year in London they won 20, a little off their average, but not bad considering the dire straits that the Ukrainian economy is in.  Canada has participated in every summer Olympics since 1900, with the exception of the boycotted games in Moscow in 1980.  Over the past ten games, their average medal count has been 17.  At London this year they managed to win 18.

Although Canada and Ukraine were quite close in terms of total medals, Ukraine did far better in winning Gold, garnering six gold medals to Canada’s one.  Ukraine’s gold medals were in such diverse sports as Boxing, Canoeing, Rowing, Fencing and Weightlifting.

Unsurprisingly, Ukraine’s biggest success came in boxing which accounted for five medals – two Gold (Vasyl Lomachenko, Oleksandr Usyk), one Silver (Denys Berinchyk) and two Bronze (Taras Shelestyuk, Oleksandr Gvozdyk).  One of the most memorable moments for Ukrainians in these Olympics was when Oleksandr Usyk, prominently gracing a traditional Kozak scalp lock (oseledets) atop his head, upon winning his Gold Medal, performed an impromptu joyous hopak right in the ring (http://www.champion.com.ua/olympic-games/2012/08/12/503752/).

For the past decade and a half, the two Klitschko Brothers, Vitali and Wladimir, have dominated the world of heavyweight boxing.  Between the two of them, they hold all of the boxing world’s championship belts and titles.  They have made boxing a popular and leading sport in Ukraine, and Ukraine’s success in boxing in this Olympics undoubtedly owes a lot to the Klitschko Brothers.

One of the more memorable performances by a Ukrainian athlete at these Olympics were the two silver medals earned by Inna Osypenko-Radomska in the Women’s 200m and 500m Kayak event.  This talented athlete from Kherson was competing in her fourth summer Olympics, having previously won a bronze medal in Athens in 2004 and a gold medal in Beijing in 2008.

Other gold winning Ukrainian athletes were:  Men’s Canoe 200m - Yuri Cheban (Odesa); Women’s Fencing Epee - Yana Shemyakina (Lviv); Women’s Rowing Quadruple Sculls – Kateryna Tarasenko (Dnipropetrovsk), Natalya Dovgodko (Kyiv), Anastasiia Kozhenkova (Volinsk), Yana Dementieva (Kharkiv); Weightlifting Men’s 96 kg – Oleksiy Torokhtiy (Donetsk).

Altogether, some 238 athletes from Ukraine competed at these Olympics compared to 281 for Canada. For two weeks they provided a wonderful respite from the seemingly endless real world problems and frustrations that our modern day lives are plagued with.

A big thank you to them all. Win or lose, you did both countries proud.