EDITORIAL: Olympic successes (08/11/96)

EDITORIAL

Olympic successes

The Centennial Olympic Games are over and, as our correspondent on the scene in Atlanta reported, they marked "Ukraine's entry into the family of nations." Ukraine finished a very respectable 10th - an unexpectedly good finish, as in the final medals count Ukraine found itself behind such powerhouses as the U.S., Germany, Russia and China, and one ahead of Canada. What star gymnast Liliya Podkopayeva and company did in Atlanta surpasses even what Oksana Baiul did in Lillehammer.

The Games began with Sergey Bubka of Donetske, who was expected to win gold in the pole vault, proudly carrying in the flag of independent Ukraine. They concluded with Olympic champion Volodymyr Klichko of the Kyiv region, who scored a major upset in the world of super heavyweight boxing, as flag-bearer at the closing ceremonies. The fates of these two athletes reflect Ukraine's over-all fate in these Games. Some of the expected winners did not fare as well as expected (e.g., Bubka could not compete due to injury); but some of the athletes who took home medals were not expected to do so (Klichko, for example, was not among the top 10 athletes listed by the magazine of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, Olimpiyska Arena).

The medalists' feats are highlighted, but then there are many others who finished just out of the running in fourth: Andriy Skvaruk, hammer throw; Vita Pavlysh, shot put; Vasyl Yakoliev, cycling, points race; swimmers Ihor Snitko, 400 m freestyle, and Svitlana Bondarenko, 100 m breaststroke; Stanislav Rybalchenko, weightlifting 99 kg; Greco-Roman wrestlers Ruslan Khakymov, 57 kg and Petro Kotok, 130 kg; Viktor Yefteni, freestyle wrestling, 48 kg; the men's 4x100 meter relay team; the women's basketball team; and yes, even Podkopayeva, who almost won a fourth gymnastics medal to add to her two golds and one silver when she placed fourth in the uneven bars.

These finishes tell us something about Ukraine's emergence as a sports power: there's certainly more where this came from.

And, there's yet another message that these Olympics have begun to drive home. Ukraine is a proud nation, one with a long history belied by its young age as a modern-day independent state. Ukraine's citizens watched their athletes compete in Atlanta, and they saw the Ukrainian blue-and-yellow being raised and heard the Ukrainian national anthem played nine times as gold medals were presented. And, Ukrainians around the world were proud, too - after all, these were their countrymen, representatives of their ancestral homeland, competing "faster, higher, stronger" (as the Olympic motto says) among the best athletes from 'round the globe. As an event that raises national consciousness, one would be hard-pressed to find one more significant than the Olympics.

And therein also lies the success of independent Ukraine's first Summer Olympic team. As President Leonid Kuchma told Team Ukraine's athletes at a special welcoming ceremony at the Mariyinsky Palace, the Olympic moments they created will "serve as a unifying force among our people" and "contribute to the greatness of our homeland." What a fitting gift for the people of this young nation on the fifth anniversary of Ukraine's declaration of independence.

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