On May 6, the news came on a Telegram group of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee: Oleksandr Pielieshenko, Olympic athlete who finished fourth in Rio 2016 and twice European champion had died “in combat with the enemy” in the war between Russia and Ukraine. As SportsIn has learned, Oleksandr’s wish was to return to weightlifting and to defend his country on the platform, in the field of sport, as he had always done. A broken dream.
Ukrainian weightlifters Iryna Dombrovska and her husband Maksym Dombrovskyi, Oleksandr’s teammates who currently reside in Ukraine, tell SportsIn that they are “shocked by this news. Oleksandr defended the freedom and independence of our country from the first days of the war and that honors him.” Iryna Dombrovska reflects on how “war gets the best of us.”
She, with her husband and their little over one year old son still reside in Ukraine. “We are fine because Maksym is still a student and has no obligation to fight in the war, but you never get used to hearing the explosions which we hear often. We just want to get back to a normal life, back to sport, that’s what we really are.” This is the harsh reality of sport in Ukraine, who knows if Maksym will also have to trade the weights for a gun in a while. Hopefully peace will come soon.
MORE THAN 400 PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES KILLED
As another Ukrainian Olympian, Vladyslav Heraskevych, recalled this week, more than 400 professional athletes have already died among the more than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians who have lost their lives in a war that turned two years old last February. “We still believe and of course hope for the victory of our country, sometimes it is very difficult but we do not lose hope,” Iryna tells.
European Weightlifting Championships podium M85 kg in 2017. (Photo: Miranda Cikotic/PIXSELL)
Among those 10,000 deceased, Oleksandr Pielieshenko is the first and only Olympic athlete to have lost his life on the battlefield. He was 30 years old and had joined the Ukrainian military forces from the very first moment, in February 2022.
Nevertheless, Oleksandr was a weightlifter, not a military man, hence his dream was to return to competition. Pielieshenko, who was suspended for a doping case in 2018, achieved fourth place at the 2016 Rio Olympics – in the M85kg weight class – and was twice European champion, in 2016 and 2017.
