World Athleticswith them International Athletics Foundation (IAF) and members of Diamond League Association, has renewed the Fund of Ukraine established last year to support professional athletes affected by conflict in their home countries.
The purpose of the Fund is to ensure that Ukraine’s elite athletes can continue to train and participate in this year’s World Championships, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Currently, the fund has $190,000 to help athletes, their families and critical support staff.
This year’s priorities are travel and accommodation fees for selected athletes in training camps during the summer, travel and accommodation coverage for athletes and officials outside the quota to participate in Budapest 2023 World Athletics Championships (August 19-27) and the World Road Athletics Championships in Riga (September 30-October 1).
The aid also included the purchase of equipment, particularly for pole vaulting, which was destroyed in the missile attack.
The General Secretary of the Athletic Federation of Ukraine, Iolanta KhropachHe explained that a large sports complex in Bakhmut, an athletics stadium, an indoor arena, throwing fields, a medical center and the Sergey Bubka Olympic Sports College) were destroyed in the battle for Bakhmut in recent months. .
“This is the only center where athletes can have training camps at any time of the year. This is very important because in the cold winter we don’t have enough enclosures to train. It is also a very important training center for pole vaulters. Now there is nothing left of Bakhmut,” Khropach wrote in a letter to World Athletics.
“We appreciate all the help, support and understanding you are giving us, but we ask that you, if it is in your power, contact the manufacturers of athletic equipment to request that they will provide athletic equipment as humanitarian aid,” he added.
The Federation reported that athletics facilities in Kharkiv and Chernihiv were also badly damaged during the fighting.
World Athletics intends to work with equipment manufacturers to replace damaged or missing equipment and send it to training camps near Ukraine’s western border.
The president of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe, Commented: “Last year, the Ukraine Fund allowed the Ukrainian Federation to send a strong team to the Oregon2023 World Championships in Athletics, where Yaroslava Mahuchikh and Andriy Protsenko won medals, and we want to make sure that the athletes of Ukraine has the same opportunity to compete and succeed this year.
“The deliberate destruction of Ukrainian athletic facilities and equipment is also a serious attack on the accessibility of our sport. We will do everything we can to help athletes survive and recover in Ukraine,” Coe said.
Source: La Verdad
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