Andriy Govorov
Andrii Govorov, 29, born in Sebastapoli, also lived in Italy, in Caserta, trained with the Adn Swim Project, won a world bronze, two European golds and in July 2018 signed the world record in the 50 butterfly right at Settecolli of Rome. He also won the Mangiarotti award in Milan together with Gregorio Paltrinieri in 2014. Now he trains in Germany, he represents Ukrainian athletes together with the saber Olga Kharlan and yesterday he wrote a letter-appeal to the IOC president and to the international federations in view of the start of the snow Paralympics. We contacted him and he vented with great dignity and measure, desperation and determination to ask for help from the Italian community, from the “Italian family of sport” as he defines it. Here is his testimony.
A celebration of Govorov
“I had trained to go to compete in the world selections, but 3 days before the races they canceled the planes for Ukraine: it was the confirmation that the war was about to begin, the Russian invasion. Now swimming is nothing for me, something insignificant, I train the minimum necessary, less than an hour and a half a day, I do some sprints, just because I have the pool five minutes from home. Then my day is all taken to help my family, Ukraine, the values of democracy, freedom, order and world peace. I am going through a very difficult moment, but I am trying to make myself available as much as I can for my compatriots. I am not in Ukraine to fight, I have not been in the military, but I want to fight with words, I am spokesperson with the Kahrlan of all athletes and we want to reach out to everyone. In my country many have lost their homes, even sportsmen have lost their lives like the nineteen year old biathlete Yevhen Malyshev, like the footballer Dmytro Martynenko with his mother, another footballer Vitalii Sapylo, he was only 21 years old, some of my friends are injured, too 3 Ukrainian national team footballers.
“Where is my family? I don’t want to talk about my mom for safety reasons, but she’s fine. My wife and my son managed to get them to escape from Ukraine and get them to Poland, but many of my relatives are still in Dnipro, my city and they are all defending themselves from attacks by the Russians. We are a united nation and we try to help each other as much as possible. My grandfather was in the military. I from Germany try to support Ukraine against Russian aggression through the media. I am an athlete, half Ukrainian and half Russian, I have lived in both countries, I know what it feels like to be Ukrainian or Russian, from the beginning Russia was aggressive, it was in 2014 for Crimea and now it invaded us a second time in a devastating way. We need to put as much pressure as possible and hope for sanctions on society to stop this massacre. We athletes must remain united, we continue to exercise all forms of condemnation of war through the media on the Olympic committee and the Russian federations even if the athletes are not to blame. I also hear Russian athletes who are disappointed with their government’s behavior, have been critical and are fighting for the war to be stopped. The same is happening in other sectors of society: I hope the economic sanctions will serve to stop the invasion ”.
“Right now, some are writing negative comments to me on social media because they don’t think like me, there are also many Russian athletes who openly support Putin. Imagine an elevator with 6 people: one starts arguing with the other, you start arguing about the war and you never end up like this massacre anymore. Now I just want to say thanks in Italian to the Italian sports family for the support they give us: we are for peace and we need humanitarian aid for children and mothers, we need food for children and basic necessities. I appeal to you: I am committed to a fundraiser on the site https://andrii-govorov.com/, even a single euro can help our people. Thank you with all my heart”.
Ukrainian Andrii Govorov and Enzo Iodice, physiotherapist from Caserta, in a photo from 2014 at the meeting in Milan
