Author: Ihor Stelmach

Following a disappointing draw with North Macedonia, Italy rebounded with an impressive performance in beating Ukraine 2-1 in a 2024 European Championship qualifying match played in San Siro Stadium in Milan, Italy, on September 12. In the 12th minute, Davide Frattesi scored the first of his two goals when Mattia Zaccagni took advantage of a...

Ukrainian Taekwon-do Union President Valentyn Zorba had the opportunity to address the International Taekwon-do Federation (ITF) Congress in Tampere, Finland, on September 5. In his speech, he thanked member nations for their support during the Russian invasion. Zorba delivered his address at the end of the Congress upon the conclusion of the official agenda that...

At the entrance to Stadion Wroclaw there stands a banner recalling the venue’s role in Euro 2012 when Poland and Ukraine co-hosted the gala event. In that earlier time, Europe’s most popular sport was being played in Wroclaw, Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk, among other cities. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had a significant effect...

Ukraine’s powerlifters dominated the International Blind Sports Association (IBSA) World Games to help propel the country to the top of the medal table with 31 gold medals and a total of 45 medals (11 silver and three bronze medals). The seventh edition of the Games, held every four years, took place in Birmingham, England, on...

Seventeen-year-old twins Dmytro and Maksym Chubenko survived Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early March 2022 when a bomb blasted into a house some 15 minutes from where they lived in Dnipro, killing a friend of their father’s. The invasion forced them to flee their home, escaping to Croatia, where they lived for almost nine months...

It was an emotional night in Wroclaw, Poland on August 27, 2023 at the Stadion Wroclaw where some 40,000 boxing fans, many of them Ukrainian refugees, gathered to witness a heavyweight battle between Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois. It ended up a joyous occasion for the Ukrainian Usyk who knocked out Dubois in the ninth...

It was quite an emotional close to the 2023 World Athletics Championships on August 27 in Budapest, Hungary. Ukraine’s war against Russia hovers over the Olympic world today as much as anywhere else, and this made it most appropriate that the last athlete standing in the last event of the final day of the championships...

Ukraine’s Vadym Shvets scored his second goal of the match with 22 seconds of extra time remaining to deal England a final crushing blow and win the International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) World Championship 4-3 at the University of Wolverhampton on August 22. Other Ukrainian goal scorers were Illia Lubashev and Robert Tremba. After scoring...

Oleksandr Budko had both of his legs amputated after being seriously injured fighting on the frontlines of Ukraine’s war against Russia. The 27-year-old was not dismayed. He managed to use his new physical condition to his advantage, and he has found a second career as a ballet star. Budko has been on tour in the...

Andrii Opikun, a team manager of Ukraine’s National Paralympic Committee (NPC), arrived in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with his 38-member squad ready to compete at the inaugural edition of the European Para Championships. In pleading with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to continue its ban on Russian athletes, Opikun spoke of the trauma faced by Ukrainian...

Ukraine’s 44 total medals were far and away tops in Aby Dhabi, U.A.E., on August 2-5 at the Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) Youth World Championships, a competition for 12-17-year-olds. Over 600 athletes from 46 countries took part in the competition.  Weight classes in the tournament ranged from 31 kg (68 pounds) to 93 kg (205...

Ukrainians dominated at the 13th Euro-pean Universities Futsal Championships in Split, Croatia, on July 18-26. Some 500 athletes and 700 overall participants from 27 European universities and 17 European countries took part in the event. The Ukrainian men’s team representing the Ivano-Frankivsk College of Physical Education won the gold medal with a perfect record of...