Humble But Victorious: Ukraine at the Olympic Games in Paris Recap

“Ukraine, I am coming home with gold!” Yaroslava Mahuichikh exclaimed after receiving gold for the women’s high jump in athletics.

It wasn’t obvious at first glance: both Yaroslava and her competitor Nicola Olyslagers of Australia jumped at the height of two meters. But judges provided Mahuichikh with the gold since she jumped on the first attempt while Olyslagers took three attempts to make it happen.

Bronze was secured by another Ukrainian athlete, Iryna Gerashchenko, and Australia’s Eleanor Patterson.

Dnipro-born Mahuichikh became the first woman in athletics in Ukrainian history who secures two medals in the discipline: she won the gold in Paris, and the bronze in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Mahuichikh also secured a place in memes. Olympic photographers took a snapshot of the athlete sleeping between jump attempts.

Ukraine is twenty-first among 84 countries in the overall Olympic medal count

Paris 2024 Olympics showed the best result for Ukraine by the number of gold medals, but the second worst outcome in overall medal count.

Mykhailo Kokhan claimed the bronze in Men’s Hammer Throw while Illia Kovtun secured the silver for Men’s Parallel Bars in Gymnastics.

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The gold medals came from the women’s sabre team.

The Ukrainian sabre team previously took silver in Rio in 2016 but missed the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Gold was secured in a match between Ukraine and the Republic of Korea – Olga Kharlan, Alina Komashchuk, Olena Kravatska, and Yuliia Bakastova wielded the blades for Ukraine.

The Republic of Korea was leading just a few points for most of the match, but the final touches from Kharlan secured leadership with 45 points from Ukraine versus 42 points from Korea. Nine of them were scored by Olga Kharlan, Ukraine’s Olympic veteran. 

The victory made the fencers and their coaches jump with excitement. 

Mykolaiv-born Kharlan is the only multi-medalist on the Ukrainian team at the 2024 Olympics this time. In Paris, she also won the bronze in the individual sabre event. “This is a message to all the world that Ukraine will never give up,” she told The Guardian.

This was a comeback for the fencer after she was nearly disqualified at last year’s World Championships in Milan, for refusing to shake hands with a Russian opponent because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But the International Olympic Committee did not disqualify Kharlan after an intervention from Thomas Bach, the IOC president and a former fencer.

Following Ukraine’s boxing championship tradition

Poltava-born Oleksandr Khyzhniak claimed the gold medal in men’s 80kg boxing – a judge scorecard decision after the final bout ended with a 3-2 count in his favor. 

His opponent, Nurbek Oralbay of Kazakhstan, underwent a variety of punches from Ukrainian boxer: the Olympics website mentioned “body shots, uppercuts, jabs and punches straight into the Kazakh boxer’s defense.”

Khyzhniak is the fifth Ukrainian Olympic boxing champion. The last time Ukraine won gold medals in boxing was in 2012 — awarded to Vasyl Lomachenko and Oleksandr Usyk. Volodymyr Klitschko also won the gold in 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Both Klitschko and Usyk became world champions after the Olympics. Usyk still holds the title.

Many Firsts and One Last

Cherkasy-born Serhiy Kulish won Ukraine’s second medal in shooting at the Olympic Games in the 50-meter rifle three positions event. “This is a medal for my country and my family,” he told Suspilne after winning. China’s Liu Yukun secured gold in the same event.

Lyudmyla Luzan and Anastasia Rybachok became the first Ukrainian female paddlers to win a medal for the Women’s Canoe Double in 500 meters. They claimed silver medals, finishing ahead of the Canadian team.

Kyiv-born Zhan Beleniuk is the first wrestler in Ukraine’s history to win three medals at the Olympic Games, competing in Men’s Greco-Roman wrestling in the 87kg category. He won silver in 2016 Rio Olympics, gold in Tokyo in 2020 and bronze in Paris in 2024.

After securing bronze at the Paris Games in the last match of his career and performing a short hopak, a celebratory Ukrainian folk dance, on the mat, Beleniuk, 33, announced his retirement from the sport.

Beleniuk also switched to politics, becoming an MP from the presidential political party “Servant of the People” in 2019, and the first black Ukrainian MP. His father was from Rwanda and died in the genocide against the Tutsi when Beleniuk was only 3 years old.

Another Ukrainian in Greco Roman wrestling 67kg category took silver – Parviz Nasibov. It is his second silver medal – Nasibov also claimed silver in 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Nasibov successfully competed against Azerbaijan’s Hasrat Jafarov despite an injured right eye – the Ukrainian wrestler received the trauma during the semi-final.

And a female Ukrainian wrestler Iryna Koliadenko claimed the silver in a category of 62 kg, dedicating the medal to her hometown of Irpin, which survived Russian occupation, devastation and attrocities in early 2022 alongside its neighbor town of Bucha.

Ukraine has paid a huge price since the athletes train for the Olympics with the additional anxiety brought about by the ongoing war in the country. 490 Ukrainian competitors and coaches have died since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 30 are in Russian captivity or survived being a POW, according to the president’s administration head Andrii Yermak.

Russia’s missiles destroyed 520 sites with sports facilities, Yermak reported.

While training for the Olympics, some athletes decided to travel in other countries to remain in safety, for example Croatia or Poland, Beleniuk told AP.

Beleniuk concluded: “And you know, it’s not easy training when some missiles are flying about your head.”