Ukrainian high jumper keeps her eye on the raised bar, but her mind is fixed on the war
Ukrainian athletes training for the Paris Olympics are torn between their sports demand for complete concentration on the here and now, and the war back home that is never far from their minds
MONTE GORDO, Portugal (AP) — Kateryna Tabashnyk’s success depends upon utter concentration on the here and now, on the height of the bar in front of her and her body’s ability to leap it.
That focus and drive is a requirement for all high-level athletes. But the 30-year-old Ukrainian high jumper’s mind wanders often to her bombarded native city of Kharkiv and the Russian missiles that have stolen so much: her mother, her apartment, a pain-free childhood for her nephew, even the fields where she trained.
Part of her is always home, she said, “and when your home has been destroyed, it feels like a large void.”
She, like most other Ukrainian athletes, carries the war with her everywhere: To Turkey, her first refuge after the full-scale invasion started in February 2022; to the European Indoor Championships in Turkey, where the 30-year-old took a bronze medal, and now to Monte Gordo in southern Portugal, where the ocean breeze drifts over the stadium that she shares with other Ukrainians training to qualify in the Paris Olympics.
