2005: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

The world of sports: Ukraine and diaspora

Vitalii Klitschko's retirement from the world of professional heavyweight boxing was among the most notable sporting events in 2005. Klitschko, 34, retired as the World Boxing Association's heavyweight champion on November 9 after spending a year trying to recover from a knee injury. Vitalii and his younger brother, Volodymyr, once dreamed of simultaneously holding heavyweight championship belts, but that dream was crushed after Vitalii's announcement.

Klitschko then said on December 10 that he was taking up politics, running in Ukraine's Parliamentary elections in March 2006. The Associated Press reported that Klitschko would sit at the top of the party list of a newly formed bloc that included a party headed by the country's finance minister, Viktor Pynzenyk, and the Pora youth movement.

Addressing his decision to retire, Klitschko said in a statement that he was tired of battling against injuries.

"Unfortunately, I've been fighting injuries recently more than facing rivals in the ring," Klitschko said. "The decision to end was hard to make. But I would like to end my career on top and with my retirement make the way free for my successor."

Just prior to his retirement, Klitschko had been scheduled to defend his title against Hasim Rahman in Las Vegas. However, four days before the fight, Klitschko injured himself again and could not fight. The injury came as Klitschko was sparring in preparation for the Rahman bout. He underwent arthroscopic surgery in Inglewood, Calif., according to the Associated Press.

Klitschko last defended his title in December 2004 against Danny Williams and was supposed to have met Rahman in April, but the fight was postponed when Klitschko pulled a thigh muscle and later injured his back.

Following Klitschko's retirement, the WBC replaced him with Rahman as the official heavyweight champion during a ceremony held in Cancun, Mexico, on December 20. The WBC also awarded Klitschko an emeritus championship belt during the ceremony. The organization also named the Ukrainian boxer a WBC World Ambassador for Peace and Good Will in the World. Klitschko "brought prestige to the heavyweight championship of the world," the WBC said.

Meanwhile, Volodymyr Klitschko overcame a series of devastating losses earlier in his career to beat Samual Peter in a unanimous decision in September. The win put Volodymyr in the role of mandatory challenger for the International Boxing Federation heavyweight championship belt currently held by Chris Byrd.

Volodymyr Klitschko, 29, lost the World Boxing Organization title when he was knocked out by Corrie Sanders in 2003. His career was also seriously hurt after he lost the following year to Lamon Brewster, and much of the boxing community later criticized the Ukrainian for lacking toughness.

Volodymyr Klitschko spent much of the past year rebuilding his career. In his only other fight of the year, he knocked out Cuban fighter Eliseo Castillo in the fourth round of their bout in Dortmund, Germany, on April 23. His two wins in 2005 have helped position him for a run in 2006 for the International Boxing Federation championship belt.

However, earlier in the year, Volodymyr Klitschko lost his bid to be recognized as the mandatory challenger to IBF champion Chris Byrd. Volodymyr Klitschko, who was dropped to the No. 4 spot in the May 2004 IBF rankings, sued for breach of contract. DaVarryl Williamson, who was beaten by Klitschko in their only meeting, moved into the No. 3 spot. The No. 1 and No. 2 slots in the IBF were vacant, leaving Williamson scheduled to fight Byrd the following month.

Klitschko's attorneys asked U.S. District Judge William Martini to stop the Williamson-Byrd match. They alleged that Williamson promoter Don King had influenced the IBF to gain the higher ranking for his fighter. At the close of the year the situation remained unresolved.

While 2006 will surely see Volodymyr Klitschko focused on winning a championship belt, much of the Ukrainian sports world will be focused on the Ukrainian national soccer team, which qualified for the 2006 World Cup for the first time ever.

Ukraine became the first European country to advance to the 2006 World Cup, to be played in Germany, when it completed its September 3 game against Georgia with a 1-1 tie. President Viktor Yushchenko conveyed his congratulations to the Ukrainian National Soccer Team via Youth and Sports Minister Yurii Pavlenko, who attended the Ukraine-Georgia match in Tbilisi.

During its qualifying campaign in 2005, Ukraine beat Georgia, Turkey, Albania and Denmark, and had two wins against Kazakhstan. In addition to the tie against Georgia, the team also tied Denmark, Albania and Greece and then beat Greece 1-0 while on the road on June 8.

The Ukrainian national team is coached by former Soviet international soccer star Oleh Blokhin, who was brought in by the Football Federation of Ukraine shortly after Ukraine failed to qualify for the UEFA Euro 2004 tournament. A European Player of the Year in 1975, Blokhin instantly found himself on the same wavelength as his star player, Andriy Shevchenko. Both Blokhin and Shevchenko appear to have come together successfully to help Ukraine qualify for the World Cup.

The team will play its first World Cup match against Spain on June 14, 2006, in Leipzig, Germany, followed by a game against Saudi Arabia in Hamburg, Germany, on June 19, 2006, and their final match of the first round against Tunisia in Berlin on June 23, 2006.

About 100,000 people gathered on Kyiv's Independence Square on October 9 to celebrate the team's success. Andriy Shevchenko, Ukraine's top scoring threat, and head coach Oleh Blokhin attended the reception and were cheered loudly by the crowd. The rally included a performance by the band Green Gray and a fireworks display.

In other soccer news, Shevchenko was voted among the top 11 soccer players in 2004-2005 by FIFPro. According to its website, FIFPro is a worldwide representative soccer organization comprising 40 national players' associations. The poll of 38,000 soccer players from 40 countries named Brazilian halfback Ronaldinho, who plays for a Spanish team, the world's best footballer. Shevchenko, who is the Ukrainian national team's top striker, plays for the Italian team AC Milan.

Back in the boxing world, Lennox Lewis, the former World Boxing Council champion, traveled to Kyiv in October to attend a boxing tournament in the Ukrainian capital. Lewis, who retired in 2004, on October 14 visited Kyiv's City Hall building, where he met with Vice Mayor Ihor Lysov.

Lewis told journalists in Kyiv that he came to Ukraine to show young Ukrainian boxers that they can become world champions like him or Vitalii Klitschko.

Vice-Mayor Lysov, referring to the retired Briton, said the visit to Ukraine by a great boxer would promote boxing in Ukraine. Lewis later met with Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko and attended a boxing tournament as a guest of honor, organized by the League of Professional Boxing of Ukraine.

In addition to Lewis, former heavyweight champion and controversial boxer Mike Tyson arrived in Ukraine on a private visit on August 28. Tyson and his 131-foot yacht Summer Wind landed at the Odesa Marine Port, the news agency Ukrinform reported, though they did not give a reason for his visit.

While Tyson's visit to Ukraine made waves above land, a team of Ukrainian spelunkers (cave explorers) made their own headlines below it. The team, a part of the Ukrainian Speleological Association's Call of the Abyss project, was sponsored by the National Geographic Society, and was part of a four-year project that set a new world record for the deepest descent into a cave.

The nine-strong group traveled 2,080 meters (6,822 feet) underground, passing the elusive 2,000-meter mark while in a cavern at Krubera, the world's deepest known cave located in Georgia's Caucus Mountains. The May 2005 issue of National Geographic featured a story on the expedition and the team, which made breaking the 2,000-meter mark its goal.

The expedition included a support team of 56 cavers and six members of a discovery team that had to negotiate vertical drops and bursts of freezing water. During the descent, which took place between August and September 2004, the team was also forced to blast rubble from tight passages so that they could move deeper into the cave.

In October 2004, a team of nine cavers was sent back to Krubera to pick up where the previous group left off. They examined unexplored leads in the cave's lowest section until they broke through to a new series of passages and vertical pits. On October 19, 2004, team leader Yuri Kasjan dropped down to a lower chasm and discovered from his altimeter that he had passed 2,000 meters.

More pits and passages brought the explorers to a sandy chamber at 2,080 meters (6,822 feet), the deepest to date any caver has ventured below ground, according to the BBC. The team christened the chamber Game Over, and said it would like to return to the cave to see if it leads even deeper.

Moving from the claustrophobic world of caving to the open road of bicycle racing, American Lance Armstrong won his seventh Tour de France bicycle competition in 2005. Notably, Yaroslav Popovych, 25, a native of Drohobych, Ukraine, was awarded the title of the tour's best young cyclist. He was a member of the American Discovery Channel team, which included Armstrong. The honor is given every year to the tour's top rider under the age of 26.

Popovych's performance also impressed The New York Times, which included the Ukrainian among a list of five riders cited as early favorites to win the 2006 Tour de France, considered to be road cycling's premier event. "The best young rider in this tour, he may succeed Armstrong as team leader," The Times wrote on July 25. "Popo, as he is known, was strong in the mountains."

Yet another strong Ukrainian athlete in 2005 was Ukraine's Mykola Antonenko, who won the 2005 Baltimore marathon, finishing the race on October 15 in 2 hours, 15 minutes and 40 seconds. Russia's Mikhail Khobotov took second place with a time of 2:17:00, and Mindaugas Pukstas of Lithuania took third place with a time of 2:18:25.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's Ilona Barvanova took second place in the women's marathon, finishing the race in 2 hours, 44 minutes and 44 seconds. Russia's Ramilya Burangulova took first place with a time of 2:42:00, and her teammate, Marina Bychkova, took third place with a time of 2:46:07.

Just three days before the marathon, on October 12 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko instructed his Cabinet to draw up a draft decree to further develop sports and a sports infrastructure in Ukraine. During his deliberations with sports leaders and ministers, Mr. Yushchenko issued instructions to the Cabinet to draw up a draft decree stating support for Ukrainian athletes. Even the smallest populated place must have a sports field; every city must have a palace of sports and a stadium, the president said.

The president said he supports the initiative by Minister Pavlenko, whose portfolio includes family, youth and sports to reform the sports system, in particular, by creating 12 sport bases for training summer and winter Olympic hopefuls.

In other Olympic news, former Olympic pole vault champion Sergei Bubka was elected on June 23 as president of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine. Mr. Bubka defeated former Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the loser of last year's presidential election, receiving 80 out of a possible 110 votes. Bubka, 41, won the gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and was a six-time world champion. He set both indoor and outdoor world records 35 times.

Yet another Ukrainian Olympic athlete making waves this past year was Olympic gold medalist Yana Klochkova, a world-renowned swimmer who announced she had returned to competition after taking a break from the sport, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Most recently, Klochkova won the 200-meter individual medley and the 400-meter individual medley events at the 2004 Athens Olympics. She also won both events at the 2000 Games in Sydney. After the 2004 Olympics, Klochkova left competitive swimming. It was the longest break the young Ukrainian had taken in her career.

Klochkova said she set her eyes on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. If she medals there, she would become the third female swimmer to accomplish the feat, joining Australia's Dawn Fraser and Hungary's Kristina Egerszegi. "I think I can do it, but it gets more difficult every time," Klochkova said. "It's easier for the younger swimmers because they're more powerful. But the older swimmers have the experience."

In 2005 a battle over control of the Dynamo Kyiv soccer club spilled into the courts, which froze almost all of the soccer team's shares at the request of one of the feuding partners.

The Pechersk regional court ruled on February 23 that 98.71 percent of Dynamo Kyiv's shares were frozen indefinitely after Russian businessman Konstantyn Grigorishin filed a lawsuit to prevent any possible sales. In February Grigorishin owned 0.1 percent of a share of Dynamo Kyiv, but said he wanted to take over the soccer club, or 98.71 percent of the remaining shares.

Grigorishin, who owns stock in at least a dozen of Ukraine's power distribution companies, was locked in a vicious feud for many years with the Surkis brothers, Ihor and Hryhorii, who own the largest stake in Dynamo Kyiv. He alleged that the brothers attempted to sell their shares in Dynamo Kyiv after ignoring his request to buy them. As a shareholder, he said, he had the legal right to buy the Dynamo Kyiv shares before they were sold.

"Although I didn't have the goal of taking Dynamo Kyiv, I will take it out of principle," he said. "My goal is to return the funds that were taken under pretense of Dynamo Kyiv." At one point, Grigorishin owned 18 percent of Dynamo Kyiv's shares. His partners authorized a stock split and reduced his stake to a mere 0.1 percent.

As part of the Pechersk ruling, the court asked that the partners submit all documents related to the stock split, their attempts to sell the stock and all their official meetings.

Ukraine's Minister of the Economy Serhii Teriokhin acknowledged on February 24 that Dynamo Kyiv's owners have had problems in dividing revenues among shareholders and, in particular, hiding revenues from their trades of soccer players. Several government officials, including Vice Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko, raised the possibility that the government would take possession of Dynamo Kyiv, though little had been resolved as the year came to a close.

In ice hockey, the Ukrainian national team was ousted from the qualification round of the 2005 International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship. Ukraine finished in sixth place in its group of six teams that included Latvia, as well as perennial powerhouses Sweden, Canada, Finland and the United States. Ukraine finished the tournament with one point, which it earned after tying the United States 1-1. Starting goaltender Konstyantyn Simchuk was credited with a stellar performance in keeping the game tight.

Ukraine lost both of its other games: 3-0 to Latvia and 2-1 to Canada, though it took a late third-period goal on the power play for Canada to beat Ukraine. Austria hosted the 16-team tournament in the towns of Vienna and Innsbruck.

Meanwhile, the Royal Canadian Golf Association (RCGA) and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame and Museum inducted the first Ukrainians into the Hall of Fame in September. Wilfred (Wilf) Homenuik and Robert (Bob) Panasik were inducted to the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame as a part of the class of 2005.

As a pro golfer Homenuik amassed eight international professional victories and earned two CPGA Tour Championship titles in 1965 and 1971. While playing on the PGA Tour, Homenuik competed in 99 competitions placing in the top-10 11 times.

At the age of 15, Panasik made history at the 1957 Canadian Open by becoming the youngest player to make the cut at a PGA Tour event - a record that still stands. So far Panasik, of Windsor, Ontario, has collected two CPGA championships, three CPGA senior championship titles and 15 various provincial titles.

Organizers of an international chess tournament were busy making their own headlines. In a June 12 article, the New York Post reported on an entirely fraudulent international chess tournament, called the "Heroes of Chornobyl Memorial Tournament." Organizers of the competition claimed the tournament was held on April 14-26 in the Ukrainian town of Slavutych.

The Ukrainian Chess Federation investigated allegations that the tournament had, in fact, never been held, and that the 14 internationally rated players listed on the event's website as invitees never played each other.

"We came across an open and shameless falsification," said the head of the Ukrainian Chess Federation, Viktor Petrov. "Did you not understand what a sin you were committing?" Petrov demanded to know from the organizers. Petrov said the bogus tournament was humiliating to "the memory of the numerous victims and true heroes of that terrible catastrophe."

With the baseball season wrapping up, both in North America and in Ukraine, Vasyl (Basil) Tarasko provided The Ukrainian Weekly with a brief baseball report on how the sport had developed in Ukraine in 2005.

Mr. Tarasko, an associate scout for Major League Baseball's San Diego Padres and the coach of Ukraine's national baseball teams, is responsible for forming at least several dozen Ukrainian baseball teams. He is also the district administrator of Ukrainian Little League Baseball, officially recognized by the sanctioning body based in Williamsburg, Pa.

The junior team (age 13-15) from Kirovohrad won third place in the Little League European Championships in Kutno, Poland, on July 17. Ukraine beat Lithuania to take third place, but lost to Belgium in the semifinals 7-6.

The team from Donetsk won the sixth annual Ukraine Little League Championship held at Puscha Vodytsia school on June 2-5. Donetsk beat the team from Kirovohrad 9-1. During the tournament, all-star teams from two orphanages, Donetsk and Radomyshl played exhibition games. U.S. Ambassador John Herbst presented both teams with uniforms.

The Tech University baseball club from Kirovohrad won the Confederation of European Baseball (CEB) qualification tournament in Utena, Lithuania, on June 18. Ukraine shut out its first three opponents by a combined score of 70-0. The Ukrainian side defeated the host team, Vetra, 7-6 and then faced Silesia from Rybnik, Poland, for the title. Ukraine's dominance in pitching continued with another shutout, with the final score of 4-0.

The Ukrainian Atma Sport Baseball Club from Kyiv took third place at the European Cup qualification tournament in Karlovac, Croatia, on June 19. Atma defeated club teams from Bulgaria and Greece, but lost 5-3 to host Karlovac. Ukraine took the bronze medal by beating BC Athletica Sofia 8-3.

Ukraine took fourth place at the European Juvenile Championship (under age 12) on July 12. The Ukrainian team defeated Lithuania and Moldova, but lost to Poland, the Czech Republic and to the eventual winner Russia.

Ukraine finished in 10th place at the Pool A European Senior Baseball Championships held in the Czech Republic on July 17. Ukraine had won the Pool B European Championships in 2004 and moved up to face the elite baseball powers in Europe in 2005. Ukraine scored five runs in losing its first four games, but then beat Croatia, England and Russia to finish with a record of three wins and five losses.

Ten girls from the cities of Rivne and Kirovohrad represented Ukraine at the Junior Girls World Cup fast pitch softball championship in Plant City, Fla., on November 23-27. The tournament was held for girls age 16 and under, but unfortunately Ukraine lost its opening game in the single elimination portion of the tournament to Chinese Taipei 15-0 and was ousted early from competition.

Diaspora sports

In the world of diaspora sports, the University of Rochester inducted soccer legend Zenon Snylyk into its Athletic Hall of Fame on November 18. Snylyk, editor-in-chief of the Svoboda Ukrainian-language daily newspaper (1980-1998) and prior to that editor of The Ukrainian Weekly, was an accomplished athlete and three-time member of the U.S. Olympic soccer team. He died in 2002 at the age of 69.

Also in the world of soccer, former long-time New Jersey resident Chris Adamkiewicz was inducted into the South Jersey Soccer Coaches Association Hall of Fame. The honor came from coaching varsity soccer at New Jersey's Clearview High School, where he has worked for 25 years. His Clearview High School teams have recorded 243 wins, 140 losses, 37 ties and three league championships.

Coach Adamkiewicz also paid his dues to the rich history of Ukrainian athleticism by playing for the Newark Ukrainian Sitch Soccer club, where he remained until 1978.

The Carpathian Ski Club held its 51st ski races in Windham, N.Y., at Ski Windham on February 26 with racing in age groups ranging from 5- and 6-year-olds to age 60 and over.

Ninety-eight competitors signed up for the races - the vast majority of them skiers, although there was a sprinkling of snowboarders among the participants. It was the fourth year that snowboarders competed in separate categories.

Meanwhile, the Yonkers, N.Y., branch of the Ukrainian American Youth Association (SUM) and the Krylati Sports Club on April 16 welcomed 10 adult teams and seven youth teams back to Lincoln High School for their recently revived Spring Volleyball Tournament.

Co-ed teams from seven SUM branches participated in the youth division: Yonkers, N.Y. (three teams), Binghamton, N.Y., Whippany, N.J., Passaic, N.J., and Philadelphia. The teams were made up of "starshe yunatstvo" SUM members (boys and girls between the ages of 13 and 18). The final featured two Yonkers teams, who were playing for hometown bragging rights. In the end, it was the free-wheeling Skarpetky who prevailed over the coachless Yonkers I squad, 21-16, 21-7.

On the adult side of the tournament, the usual powerhouse teams of Khmeli/Spartanky (Plast), the Morris County Volleyball Club of New Jersey and Hartford SUM all happened to be drawn into the same "group of death."

The final saw the Khmeli/Spartanky squad, complete with two former All-Americans, successfully defend their title from last year against a tired, but dogged Hartford team, 15-7, 15-9. Krylati pushed the third-place match into a deciding third game as well, before falling to MCVC, 15-9, 13-15, 11-8.

Several months later, New Jersey's Morris County Volleyball Club (MCVC), conducted the first annual Ukrainian American Cultural Center of New Jersey Volleyball Invitational 2005 on October 22 with proceeds going to the building fund of its new community home. Co-hosts included the Whippany branch of the Ukrainian American Youth Association (SUM), the Newark branch of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization and the Chornomorska Sitch sports club.

As expected, the fiercest competition came in the men's open division, where Chornomorska Sitch of Newark, SUM Hartford, the Trenton Ukrainian Home and the MCVC slugged it out. Sitch and MCVC wound up playing a see-saw, two-hour final until men's MVP Roman Bulawski finally took charge and led the MCVC to victory.

In the women's open division, the final came down to Sitch and the MCVC as well. The MCVC took the first two games of the match, and held an early lead in the third. But the Sitch women, using only five players and no subs all day, finally shook off their initial rust and allowed their natural skills to re-emerge with each successive game. Led by the women's MVP, Alexandra Zawadiwsky, Sitch swept the last three games to win the match 3-2.

The youth division was an all-SUM affair, with Yonkers, Whippany and two teams from Passaic competing. Passaic took the crown among the under-18 co-ed teams, with Maggie Krol winning the MVP trophy.

The over-40 seniors' division witnessed MVP Jaroslaw Palylyk working tirelessly but ultimately proving unable to lift his Yonkers Krylati team over the MCVC seniors in the finals.

Finally, there was an overall club champion trophy awarded to the club that achieved the most top-five finishes across all divisions. The MCVC won the inaugural trophy, outdistancing Sitch, which came in second.

Moving from the volleyball courts to the swimming pool, on September 3, a record number of swimmers - 72 - registered for the 49th annual Labor Day Swimming Competition held at Soyuzivka, the Ukrainian National Association's estate in Kerhonkson, N.Y. Indeed, up to three heats had to be organized for some events in order to accommodate the under 10 age group.

After the competition, trophies and medals provided by the Ukrainian National Association were handed out to individual and team champions. First place in the team competition went to Tryzub with the final score of 149, Chornomorska Sitch came in second with 139 points and third place fell to SUM with 138 points.

Soyuzivka, the UNA's resort in Kerhhonkson, N.Y., was also the site of the annual Ukrainian Sports Federation of the U.S.A. and Canada (USCAK) Labor Day Tennis Tournament. Once again Erik Matkiwsky and Maryanna Milchutske won the men's and women's division, respectively. The tournament, held on September 3-5, celebrated 50 years of consecutive play.

The opening ceremonies, held on the tennis courts of Soyuzivka, were dedicated to the 50th tournament held at the UNA estate and the 50th anniversary of USCAK. Greetings and a short history of the tournament were given by Yurij Kupchynsky, one of the organizers of the first tennis tournament held here. There were 19 men and 12 women in that tournament.

Finally, the 50th anniversary general meeting of the Ukrainian Sports Federation of the U.S.A. and Canada (USCAK) - in which 31 delegates representing Ukrainian sports clubs in Chicago, Toronto, Rochester, Philadelphia, New York, Yonkers, N.Y. and Newark, N.J., participated - took place at the Ramada Hotel in East Hanover, N.J., on October 8. The evening also saw an anniversary banquet with entertainment held in the hotel's hall marking the organization's 50 years of activity. USCAK president, Myron Stebelsky, was re-elected to another term.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, January 15, 2006, No. 3, Vol. LXXIV

| Home Page |