The Decathlete Who Picked Up a Gun
About 500 top-level Ukrainian athletes and coaches have died in the war. Volodymyr Androshchuk promised his loved ones he would make it back.
By Jeré Longman and Oleksandr Chubko
Androshchuk had considered joining Ukraine’s armed forces when the war began but was discouraged by his family. They even tried to hide his documents, according to Zhuravska, who like most of those interviewed for this story spoke through an interpreter. Later, she learned, he brought his medals to a military recruitment center and said: “I’m a good runner. You should take me.” A friendly doctor, he told her, gave him medical clearance despite his faulty back...
Their athletic training gave them resilience and reliability, Dziubynsky said, as they skirmished with Russian forces in villages, forests and fields. They were tall, strong men who carried the dead and wounded from the battlefield and shared everything, Dziubynsky said, even a supply of new underwear that Androshchuk received.
“He performed each task as if it were the last time, like an athlete,” Dziubynsky said. “Somehow we were always lucky.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/22/world/olympics/ukraine-war-athletes-dead.html