Heraskevytj received a nice award
There was no start at the Olympic Games for the disqualified Ukrainian skeleton skater Vladyslav Heraskevytj.
But even though he was able to receive a medal, he still remembered something else from the turbulent days in Cortina.
Heraskevytj received the Order of Freedom from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj.
The two met in Munich, where Zelensky is taking part in the ongoing security conference there. Vladyslav Heraskevytj’s father, who is also his coach, was also present at the meeting.
“Medals mean a lot to Ukraine and to you, but what really matters is who you are,” Volodymyr Zelensky said to Vladyslav Herasevich during the ceremony.
President Zelensky also expressed his respect for all athletes who supported Vladyslav Heraskevyt.
To the ceremony, Vladyslav Heaskevych brought the helmet that was the reason for his disqualification. The faces of athletes and friends who died in the war are depicted on the helmet. The IOC considered that the helmet therefore had a political message and violated Olympic rules.
Looking forward after failure
What couldn’t happen has happened. The free program of 21-year-old figure skater and superstar Ilia Malinin did not end with tears of joy and a gold medal around her neck. Instead, it turned out to be the toughest night of his life after he dropped from first to eighth place after completing a program that contained several major errors.
The pain of that hard night hasn’t gone away yet, the question is whether it will ever completely go away, but at least he has already started to look forward.
“Now all I can do is analyze what actually happened and think about what needs to be done to prevent something like this from happening again,” he told Reuters.
The Milan Olympics marked his Olympic debut after he was, somewhat surprisingly, not selected for Beijing four years ago.
“I think if I had competed in 2022, I would have had more experience and better knowledge of how I would have handled competing in the Olympics,” he says.
Canada’s youngest player plays on Olympic ice
19-year-old forward Macklin Celebrini is the youngest player ever to appear on a Canadian Olympic team in tournaments where NHL players were allowed to participate.
In the first two games he showed why he got a place in the squad. He also showed his feel for goal. He scored a goal in both the opening game against the Czech Republic and in the second group phase game against Switzerland.
– The guy is real. “I can’t say enough positive things about him,” USA general manager Doug Armstrong told the Olympic Official Information Channel.
Canada completes the group stage on Sunday when it takes on France.
