Turning the pages back... July 21, 1996 (07/18/04)

Turning the pages back...

July 21, 1996

In 1996, as the Summer Olympics in Atlanta were about to begin, The Ukrainian Weekly commented on yet another historic moment for Ukraine: "By the time you read this issue of The Ukrainian Weekly, the opening ceremonies of the XXVI Summer Games will be over, and the young team representing the independent young state of Ukraine will have marched proudly with their blue-and-yellow national flag. It will no doubt be a sight to remember as the 1996 Games are the first Summer Olympics for independent Ukraine." Ukraine's 237 athletes were to be among the 10,700 athletes representing 197 countries in Atlanta on July 19-August 4, 1996. Our editorial gave the following background information that provided a context in which readers could view the 1996 Olympics.

During its Olympic debut as an independent state at the XVII Winter Olympics in 1994, Ukraine had fielded at team of 37. It was a team hampered by lack of proper equipment and a severe shortage of funds, but it was a proud troupe nonetheless. The honor of carrying independent Ukraine's flag in the opening ceremony on February 12 - the first time ever that flag appeared officially at the Olympics - went to figure skater Viktor Petrenko. At those Games, it will be recalled, the first medal for independent Ukraine was in the 7.5 kilometer biathlon: a bronze captured on February 23, 1994, by Valentyna Tserbe. And the first gold went to a graceful sprite, an orphan adopted by the whole world, 16-year-old figure skater Oksana Baiul. As a result of her stunning performance, on the night of February 25, 1994, the Ukrainian flag was raised and the Ukrainian anthem was played.

It was as early as 1916 that a Kyiv Olympic Committee had been established. In 1920, the governments of both the Ukrainian National Republic and the Western Ukrainian National Republic tried to participate in the Olympics in Antwerp. The following year Soviet Ukraine organized a Ukrainian Olympic Committee, but this was quickly disbanded by Moscow. Next, as noted in the Newsletter of the Ukrainian World Congress, a Ukrainian Olympic Committee was formed in 1956 (headed by Dr. V. Bilynskyj of Australia) to work for IOC recognition that Ukraine, which had its own seat in the United Nations, should have its own team at the Olympic Games.

In the 1980s talk of forming a National Olympic Committee began to surface in Ukraine. Then, in 1989, the World Congress of Free Ukrainians created an Olympic Committee to pursue this same goal. A year later, in December 1990, sports activists from all of Ukraine's oblasts gathered in Kyiv to establish the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, electing former Olympic champion Valerii Borzov as its president. In March 1992, the International Olympic Committee granted the NOC Ukraine conditional membership. In the meantime, however, during the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville and the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, Ukraine was part of the so-called Unified Team representing the Commonwealth of Independent States. Finally, in 1994, came Ukraine's entry into the Olympic arena.

Source: "Olympic hopes fulfilled" (Editorial), The Ukrainian Weekly, July 21, 1996, Vol. LXIV, No. 29.

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