Three years ago, in September 2014, advertising agency owner Mikhail Pimenov, 39, went to London to attend the Invictus Games –a Paralympic-style event for soldiers wounded in war.
While watching the competition was exciting, he could not stop thinking about his home country, Ukraine, where the war was at its peak and Ukrainian soldiers were being seriously injured day after day.
He realized that Ukraine also had to take part in the Invictus Games.
Pimenov contacted Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, and won support from the Ministry of Defense, the Stratcom non-government organization, and the media.
Three years later, in 2017, a Ukrainian team took part in the Invictus Games for the first time. The main team of 15 veterans and 13 reserves travelled to Toronto, Canada, to prove that war injuries would not stop them enjoying their lives to the fullest.
Royal help
The Invictus Games were established in 2014 in London by a member of the British royal family, Prince Harry, as a way to highlight the sacrifices made by injured and disabled veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
This year, more than 550 Invictus Games competitors from 17 nations participated in the games on Sept. 23-30, including veterans from Romania, the United Kingdom, the United States, Jordan, and New Zealand.
The event featured sports such as sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis, cycling, athletics, powerlifting and an event new to the 2017 games – golf. The games’ events were held at the sports venues around Toronto.
Ukraine’s small team of 26 people (Canada’s team had 90 competitors, while the U.S. team had 100) did far better than anyone had expected.
The Ukrainian team won a total of 14 medals, including eight gold, three silver, and three bronze.
Oleksander Pysarenko took the gold for Ukraine in rowing, while Vasyl Pashkevich earned gold for powerlifting. Oleg Zimnikov won first place in the 1,500 meters sprint, and Roman Panchenko took the gold in archery.
Pavel Budayevsky won gold in four separate swimming events: 50 meters freestyle, 50 meters backstroke, 50 meters breaststroke and 100 meters freestyle.
Although he brought Ukraine its best results, Budayevsky remains modest.
“I showed very good results during the training session before the competition, but I wasn’t sure I would win until the very last minute, and I still can’t believe it’s all real,” Budayevsky told the Kyiv Post after arriving back in Kyiv on Oct. 2.
Archery coach Lesya Shah saw another side to the games. While her athletes won gold and silver medals, she felt the pressure of competition herself.
“I was so worried watching my students doing their best to win,” she says. “I couldn’t stand still, I would scream sometimes or make different moves with my arms because I was very anxious and felt too much pressure.”
Pimenov said the people in the team were not professional athletes. The main factor in being chosen to take part in the games was how rapidly a person improved their own performance.
“For example, a candidate for the games runs 50 meters in, let’s say, 20 seconds and in a month he improves that to 15 seconds,” said Pimenov. “We chose people who showed progress and the will to improve.”
Expat community
Arriving in Toronto, Ukrainian team was surprised by the huge amount of support they received from the Ukrainian expatriate community. Team members said that while performing they saw Ukrainian flags, and met lots of people wearing traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts who spoke Ukrainian and befriended them.
President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress Paul Grod said the Ukrainian community in Canada was very excited that Ukraine was participating in the Invictus Games for the first time. They arranged visits for the athletes to Ukrainian schools in Canada, and turned out at events to support the team.
One of the highlights of the games was the official welcoming ceremony in Toronto on Sept. 23, which was attended by Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, together with Canada’s minister of defense and members of Canada’s parliament.
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, an umbrella organization of Ukrainian diaspora communities throughout Canada, has raised over $100,000 to support soldiers that have been injured as a result of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and will use the money to launch the Wounded Warriors Ukraine Fund.
Next year, the Invictus Games will take place in Sydney, Australia.
See the Kyiv Post photo gallery about Ukraine’s Invictus Games team returning on Oct. 2.
