death in combat of Olympic weightlifter Oleksandr Pielieshenko – Liberation

2024-05-07 13:38:27

War between Ukraine and RussiafileThe 30-year-old Ukrainian had participated in the Rio Olympics in 2016. He was killed on the front, the federation announced Monday, May 6 evening.

Oleksandr Pielieshenko was twice European champion in 2016 and 2017. And at the 2016 Rio Olympics, he took fourth place in the 85 kg category. This Ukrainian weightlifter died on the Ukrainian front at the age of 30, the Ukrainian Weightlifting Federation announced Monday, May 6.

“It is with great sadness that we inform you that the heart of the great Ukrainian sportsman Oleksandr Pielieshenko has stopped beating,” the body said in a statement. “War takes the best of us…heroes don’t die,” Victor Slobodianiuk, coach of the Ukrainian weightlifting team, commented on Facebook.

Pielieshenko had joined the Ukrainian armed forces from the start of the Russian offensive, in February 2022, recalled the Ukrainian Olympic Committee, which also paid tribute to the weightlifter, banned after failing an anti-doping test in 2018.

Another Ukrainian Olympic athlete, skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, was moved by Pielieshenko’s death. He estimated that around 450 top Ukrainian athletes had died since the start of the conflict. “These people should be developing sports in our country and living their lives, but now they are being killed,” said Vladyslav Heraskevych, who was the first to deliver an anti-war message at the Beijing Winter Olympics. in February 2022. At the same time, Russian athletes who support the war participate in international sports competitions. I don’t understand how this is possible. This is madness.”