Last Thursday, Kyiv’s Boryspil airport received an airplane carrying the first batch of Ukrainian Olympic athletes. Among them were our, so far the only, winners of the Sydney gold: swimming twice champion Yana Klochkova, 18 (who also has a silver to her credit), from Kharkiv and the 32-year-old shooter Mykola Milchev, our Till Eulenspiegel from Odesa.
At a press conference organized by the State Sports Committee, our triumphant athletes and their coaches shared their impressions of the world’s most grandiose competitions held once in four years. Yana Klochkova looked somewhat embarrassed, so it was her coach, Nina Kozhukh who was answering most questions. She noted the huge contribution the Kharkiv oblast administration made to Yana’s victory. “Kharkiv received us cordially (Simferopol did nothing, apart from making promises, to create conditions for Yana’s training. It took us too long even to make a deal about warm water in the pool).” Ms. Kozhukh stressed she hoped the Ukrainian leadership would keep its promise to pay off the money prize (it will be recalled that a gold medal “costs” $50,000, a silver $30,000, and a bronze $20,000).
Mykola Milchev, as befits a shooter, is a man of few words. It was difficult to fight not only against the rivals but also against the never- ending pressure of the judges who did their best not to see the Ukrainian marksman on the podium top. Yet, they could not possibly to nullify a 150-from-150 result in the skeet. “Two points in shooting are equal to a ‘two-body’ advantage in swimming,” Mykola said. The sponsors did not stay away, either, promising, as always, to help the champs, but only Mazda-Ukraine immediately switched over from words to deeds and presented a check to pay the first installment for a car. The UMC corporation also promised to continue cooperation with Yana.
Nonetheless, this press-conference left a bitter aftertaste (this is my personal opinion), for the invisible spirit of proverbial dollars and foreign-made cars was hovering in the packed room. There is a good saying in this connection: “What spoils people is not money but its absence.”
