Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy —
Wrapped in a Ukrainian flag with its colors painted on her left cheek, Olha Scherhyna stood near the top of the Cortina Curling Center, pointing her phone at the big board displaying the men’s skeleton start list.
Minutes earlier, the International Olympic Committee had disqualified Ukrainian slider Vladyslav Heraskevych from the men’s skeleton for wearing a helmet honoring athletes killed in the war with Russia. As the names scrolled across the board, a red “DNS” appeared next to Heraskevych, while the announcer confirmed he would not start.
Scherhyna didn’t need a translation app to express her emotions. She raised her fists to her eyes, signaling sobs, before tears streamed down her cheeks. Reaching into the pocket of her white jacket, she pulled out a black armband and motioned for it to be tied around her jacket, a quiet tribute to the fallen.
On her app she wrote, “For Ukraine, he is already a winner.’’
Yulianna Tunytska, Ihor Hoi, Nazarii Kachmar, Andriy Mandziy, Olena Stetskiv, and Oleksandra Mokh of Ukraine raised their helmets Thursday in a tribute to Vladyslav Heraskevych.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Heraskevych have been at an impasse since Tuesday, when the Ukrainian slider wore a helmet honoring athletes killed since Russia invaded Ukraine during a training run. The IOC said the helmet violated its guidelines on athlete expression. Rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter, which safeguards Olympic “neutrality,” states that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.” Heraskevych has since appealed the decision.
Heraskevych argued that his helmet was no different from the photograph American figure skater Maxim Naumov displayed of his parents, who were killed in a plane crash, and that it was simply a way to memorialize his peers. The IOC suggested he wear a black armband instead, but Heraskevych stood firm, telling CNN, “I believe the IOC doesn’t have enough black bands to memorialize all the athletes who were killed in the war.”
Heraskevych held his helmet following his disqualification.
The IOC had hoped for a compromise, indicating it would reach out to Heraskevych before the official competition began. But the Ukrainian slider, who also served as his country’s flag bearer at the Opening Ceremonies in Cortina, made it clear he would not back down. An hour before the skeleton heats, he posted on X, “I never wanted a scandal with the IOC, and I did not create it.” He added that he requested the organization “lift the ban on the use of the ‘Memory Helmet.’”
IOC president Kristy Coventry traveled to Cortina Thursday morning specifically to meet with Heraskevych and his father, Mykhailo. She expressed empathy and respect for his desire to honor fallen peers.
“No one, no one – especially me – is disagreeing with the messaging,” Coventry said. “The messaging is a powerful message of remembrance, it’s a message of memory and no one is disagreeing with that. … We’re not making a judgement on whether the messaging is political or not political.”
Instead, Coventry said, the decision stems from recommendations made by the Athletes Commission in 2021, which limited athletes’ opportunities to express their views “on the field of play prior to the start of competition.”
“It’s because we had so many athletes come up to us and say, ‘If you open that up, how do you keep me safe? How do you stop me from being used by others to send a message that I don’t agree with?’ That’s why these rules are in place. It’s to ensure the safety of everybody,” Coventry explained.
For Ukrainians, however, the decision was easy to interpret. President Volodymyr Zelensky praised Heraskevych on X, saying, “The truth cannot be inconvenient, inappropriate, or called a ‘political demonstration at a sporting event.’ It is a reminder to the whole world of what modern Russia is. This reminds everyone of the global role of sports and the historic mission of the Olympic movement itself — it is all about peace for the sake of life. Ukraine remains faithful to this. Russia proves otherwise.”
In recognition of his actions, Zelensky later awarded Heraskevych the country’s Order of Freedom.
IOC President Kirsty Coventry was visibly emotional when speaking to the media after her meeting with Vladyslav Heraskevych.
Ukrainians at the Cortina Sliding Center came to support Heraskevych and shared the same sentiments as their president.
Iryna, who asked that her last name not be used, fled Ukraine on the fifth day of the war with her husband and son, settling in her husband’s home country of Italy. She hasn’t returned in four years, while members of her family remain in Ukraine.
“They are freezing in their homes,” she said. “Some don’t have electricity. Some don’t have heating.”
To Iryna, Heraskevych’s helmet serves as a reminder that Ukraine is still at war and highlights the human cost. The helmet displays images of boxer Pavlo Ischenko, hockey player Oleskiy Loginov, diver Mykyta Kozubenko, actor and athlete Ivan Koneno, and shooter Oleksiy Khabarov, all killed in action, along with 14-year-old weightlifter Arina Perehudova, killed in Mariupol shelling, and 20-year-old ballet dancer Daria Kurdel, who died from shrapnel in Kryvyi Rih, according to published reports.
“This is unacceptable,” Iryna said. “The war is still going. These people were killed. What else can they tell you?”
Heraskevych led the standings through five training runs.
“This is even bigger than a medal,” said Khaichyk. “He’s won the medal of our hearts.”
Outside the sliding center, just as competition was set to begin, a photographer captured Heraskevych’s father, Mykhailo, bent at the waist, overcome with emotion.
Mykhailo Heraskevych, father and coach of Vladyslav Heraskevych, reacted emotionally after his son’s disqualification.
On X, Vladyslav did not back down. He reposted an image of himself preparing for a training run, his eyes meeting the camera while the images of the fallen athletes glowed on his helmet.
“This,” he wrote on X, “is the price of our dignity.”
