INTERVIEW: Vyacheslav Oliynyk, winner of Ukraine's first gold

Vyacheslav Oliynyk became the first Ukrainian gold medalist of the Summer Games when on July 23 he took first place in wrestling in the 90 kg class. Jacek Fafinski of Poland and Maik Bullmann of Germany won the silver and bronze, respectively. Roman Woronowycz, The Ukrainian Weekly's staff editor on assignment at the Olympics, met with the 30-year-old Olympic champion who hails from Mariupil soon after his historic victory. Below is a transcript of the short interview conducted in the Olympic Village. [Editor's note: Though the official Ukrainian-language list of Ukraine's athletes prepared by the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine lists Vyacheslav Oliynyk as Oleynyk (éÎÂÈÌËÍ), the Olympic champion insists he is "Oliynyk."]

Q: When did you start wrestling?

A: I began wrestling when I was 6, that is to say 24 years ago.

Q: And when did your great talent in this sport become obvious? This, perhaps, is a question better put to your coach, but I'd like to hear your remark.

A: I think it was when I made a decision that I must do something with my life. I decided to enter the Kyiv Institute of Physical Culture. I knew that I had to show them what I had or I wouldn't get in. You have to be good.

I began training seriously for the first time. I was about 13 or 14 years old. You could say that is when my training procedure became one geared towards becoming a professional.

Q: Where do you train today?

A: I live in Kyiv with my wife, Kateryna, and my 6-year-old daughter, Nastia, and train there. But I still compete with the Mariupil Sports Club. I want to continue to have ties to Mariupil because that is where my parents still live.

Q: So how do you feel being Olympic champion, the best in the world? Was it a surprise, or did you expect it all along?

A: Maybe for some people it was a surprise that I won, for others it was expected. It depends on how you look at it. But for me it was an obvious goal. After 24 years in the sport, training, dealing with injuries, exhaustion and a wife who said to me before I left to come here, "You're 30 years old, what do you think you're doing going to Atlanta? You're old, stay home, find a job, be with your child," I had to show something. I decided I was going to achieve something here, I was going to make my imprint on the world.

Q: Who were your toughest opponents?

A: If we are talking about the Olympics, then the toughest matches were in the preliminary rounds. Once I got to the finals, no one was going to beat me. I had already beaten the 1992 gold medalist in Atlanta, Maik Bullmann.

We have been friends since 1986 and have an ongoing thing between us - who can beat whom the most. No one knows about this. So it was great when I beat him, especially since I lost the first two rounds before taking the last four.

There was another guy, in the semifinals, a Turk, [Hakki] Bazar, who was world champion last year, a serious and strong competitor, but things went my way, and I beat him.

Q: What other championships have you won?

A: I was 1994 European champion.

Q: Were you in Barcelona in 1992?

A: No. Then it was the CIS [Unified] Team. Muzha Mensa, whom I did not consider a better fighter, went. He was living in Russia, so he went.

Since 1990, when I won the championship of the USSR, I had not lost a single meet. I won the Spartakiad, all the major championships. I also won the CIS championships in 1992, which decided who would be part of the Olympic squad going to Barcelona. I did not lose a single match there.

But this was the politics of the moment, of the chaos of that period. Russia, Ukraine; this is closer, that is further. Why should we take an athlete from distant Kyiv, from Ukraine, when we can take an athlete who lives in Moscow, a person who is "closer" to us, as they said.

Q: You said there was a time when your wife said enough is enough and wanted you to get out of the sport to become a family man and better support your family. Now, with your gold in hand, I am sure life will become easier. Do you have any specific plans for your future?

A: I am looking over my options, but I really do not have any specific plans right now and do not expect to make any decisions for a while. When I get back I am going with my family on vacation. Sometime after the New Year I will decide.

But I will not consider leaving the sport. I will not turn my back on this sport. No way. If I do not become a trainer, then at the least I will support young talent financially - those kids who have a difficult life, just as mine was difficult.

But regarding what my wife says, what would your wife say if out of 365 days in a year you are competing or training for 300 of them? She doesn't see me. She once told me, "At least give me a picture of yourself so I do not forget what you look like." I saw my daughter for the first time when she was 2 months old.

Q: What drew you to Greco-Roman wrestling as opposed to freestyle?

A: It wasn't a situation in which I really had a choice. My dad took me by the ear, you see I was a pretty bad kid, and we went to a friend of his, Nikolai Pantaziynyk, who was my first trainer and still is today.

He did not have a kid's group, but was trainer and manager of students. I was 6 years old and he was asked to give me something to do to occupy my time. Let him run, lift weights, anything so that when he comes home at night he will [be exhausted and] go straight to bed and stop beating up on kids. That's how it started, slowly I became involved.

Q: My last question, how do you like it here?

A: Where, in Atlanta?

Q: Here in the Village, or Atlanta.

A: Atlanta I have not seen once in the two weeks that I've been here. I stayed to myself. In the last two weeks I have been resting. I guess it was the nervous tension and the preparations. I didn't do anything, I didn't even eat. I mostly slept.

Q: How about the food?

A: The food. It is good. There is plenty. But it is not ours. It is not what we are accustomed to. I'd like to have some borshch with good bread, some garlic and onion, a bit of "salo." We sit around and someone suggests, let's go get something to eat. Go eat what, we say, there is nothing to eat there (in the Village cafeteria).

So we go, have some tea, some milk. But beefsteaks, Big Macs, that's not ours.

Q: So you have tried our infamous Big Mac?

A: Sure, this is my fourth time in America.

Q: Do you have any desire to move to America, or to Europe to make a few dollars?

A: No, not at all. I don't need this. I understand - I just won a gold medal, I have this image, but I do not need this.

I have everything, I have a family, a house, a car and a great job. I have no one over me, suffocating me. I haven't signed a contract with anybody. I am free.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, August 4, 1996, No. 31, Vol. LXIV

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