for Ukrainian athletes, training is a struggle – Liberation

Since the Russian invasion, Ukrainian judokas, twelve of whom are competing in the world championships this Thursday, have to rely on system D or solidarity to practice, while some of them are mobilized.

Looking back, Darya Bilodid would almost be nostalgic for the not-so-distant time when diets were the main nightmare of her life. Getting her meter seventy-two into the 48 kilos of the category that had made her queen – first senior European title at 16, world title at 18 – Darya Bilodid has long been able to do, even if the postponement of a year of the Tokyo Games undoubtedly resulted in too many hardships (she finished “only” third there).

The Ukrainian judo star, with nearly 500,000 Instagram followers, will compete on Saturday at the world championships in Tashkent in the -57 kg category, in which she now competes. The sporting culmination of a year obviously turned upside down by the consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Bilodid arrived with her mother, grandmother and dog on March 19 on the Costa Blanca, after driving 3,400 kilometers through Slovenia, Italy, France and Spain, grabbing the pole outstretched by the Spanish couple Sugoi Uriarte and Laura Gómez who manage a training center in Valencia.

“More than 500 judokas or former judokas at the front”

About twenty compatriots gradually joined it, hosted with the support of the Valencian Judo Federation. “When the war started, we were training in Tenerife, completes Vitalii Dubrova, 45, head coach of the Ukrainian national team since 2008. The first ten days, we hardly trained. Everyone worried about their family…