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The athlete gets public support from the Ukrainian President.
The Winter Olympics in Milan have brought moments of celebration and tension as athletes return to the world’s biggest stage.
For one Ukrainian competitor, however, preparations have been overshadowed by a dispute over how the war at home is remembered.
Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych said on Feb. 10 that Olympic officials barred him from using a custom helmet during official training and races at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
According to Heraskevych, the International Olympic Committee intervened after the helmet appeared in initial runs, ruling it out for sanctioned sessions.
“A decision that simply breaks my heart,” Heraskevych wrote on Instagram. “The feeling that the IOC is betraying those athletes who were part of the Olympic movement, not allowing them to be honored on the sports arena where these athletes will never be able to step again.”
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Faces of loss
The helmet carries portraits of Ukrainian athletes killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, a design Heraskevych said represents only a fraction of those lost.
“It is unfair, and these people should not have left us at such a young age,” he wrote. “With this I want to pay tribute to these individuals and to their families. The world needs to know the true price of Ukrainian freedom.”
He described the tribute as personal rather than political, focused on remembrance rather than protest.
Article 50
Reuters reports that Heraskevych was told by the IOC, that the helmet was in breach of article 50 of the IOC charter.
Rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter states: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”
Support and context
President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly backed the athlete, noting the helmet includes figures such as figure skater Dmytro Sharpar, killed near Bakhmut, and 19-year-old biathlete Yevhen Malyshev, who died near Kharkiv.
“This truth cannot be inconvenient, inappropriate, or called a ‘political action at sporting events,’” Zelensky said, framing the helmet as a reminder of sacrifice and of the Olympic ideal of peace.
Sources: Instagram of Vladyslav Heraskevych, Office of the President of Ukraine, The Kyiv Independent, Reuters
