Thank you for your fairness and understanding
The closer the double-digit numbers on the calendar come to the New Year, the more often the results of various competitions and ratings are announced. It's a long-standing tradition to summarize the results. The outgoing year was no exception. It was a difficult year for our country. A year of fighting, a year of hopes and disappointments. A year in which everyone in Ukraine became a politician. Each at their own level.
That is why it is very gratifying that the International Paralympic Committee has recognized the historic participation of the Ukrainian national skiing and biathlon team in the Sochi Games. Our national team performed brilliantly.
I use this word because it took courage to take this step. You have to understand that the nerves of every member of the team, from the ski groomers, coaches, doctors and Valery Mikhailovich Sushkevich, were stretched so tight every day that it seemed as if they were ringing throughout the country. We were afraid that these nerves would fail. We watched as Misha Tkachenko walked alone with the Ukrainian flag at the opening ceremony of the Games, and as Lyudmila Pavlenko became the Ukrainian Joan of Arc at the Russian stadium on the closing day of the 2014 Games.
Every day began with the fact that no one in our team knew for sure whether it would be completed in Sochi or whether we would have to leave the foreign «resort» early. Everyone was afraid of the outbreak of war. The team survived. It withstood this amazingly strong psychological attack. In this extreme situation, the guys and girls managed not only to show the real courage of great diplomats, but also to win so many top awards to become the fourth in the world. With a minimum number of athletes, 25 awards were won, and our team repeated the success of Turin 2006. And this is worth a lot!
Taking all this into account, the International Paralympic Committee ranked the Ukrainian cross-country skiing and biathlon team among the top 50 events in the world and gave it the honorable seventh place. Thank you for your fairness and understanding.
IPC Top 50 Moments of 2014, video:
