On eve of Olympics, Ukraine mourns young athletes lost to war

When Stanislav Hulenkov signed up for Ukraine's border guard in 2021, he sought a stable job on the quiet northwestern frontier so he could continue his career as a rising judo star.

Two years later, the 22-year-old disappeared on an artillery-scarred battlefield on the other side of the country. Hulenkov's remains were identified 10 months after that, making him one of hundreds of Ukrainian athletes killed in Russia's full-scale invasion.

Ahead of the Summer Olympics which open in Paris this week, Ukraine is mourning athletes like Hulenkov whose sporting promise was cut short by the war, now grinding towards its 30th month.

"He was the kind of child who always had plans," said his mother, Iryna Hulenkova, speaking outside the gym where her son trained as a child in the picturesque western city of Lutsk. "He knew what would happen tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow."

At least 488 Ukrainian athletes and trainers have been killed since early 2022, around two dozen of whom had been European or world champions in their discipline, according to sports ministry spokesman Serhiy Bykov.

Weightlifter Oleksandr Pielieshenko, who finished fourth in his weight class at the 2016 Summer Games, became the latest prominent sporting casualty when he was killed in eastern Ukraine on May 5 aged 30.

The two-time European Champion had joined the military in the first months of Moscow's invasion - his second direct experience of war after he fled the eastern Luhansk region in 2014 after Russia sparked a separatist insurgency there.

"Sports were always his life, and he always wanted to return," she told Reuters.

Despite earlier threats to boycott the Games, Kyiv is sending 140 athletes and 95 coaches, a smaller delegation than in peacetime.

Back home, they trained amid regular Russian air strikes that have ravaged critical infrastructure and plunged cities across Ukraine into darkness.

Athletes from Russia and Belarus, which allowed Moscow to use its territory to launch its February 2022 invasion, are participating in the Games only as neutrals, barred from singing anthems or displaying flags and emblems.

Ukrainian sports authorities in May released recommendations for its athletes on avoiding contact with competitors from the two neighbouring countries.

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"For me, it's a reminder that he's always...travelling with me to competitions."