Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladislav Heraskevich claims the International Olympic Committee has banned his helmets bearing images of war dead in his home country, a decision that “breaks my heart”.
The 26-year-old wore the helmet during a Winter Olympics training session in Cortina and promised to use the event as a platform to draw attention to the conflict ahead of the Games.
The IOC has not yet publicly confirmed whether it has banned the helmet.
“The IOC has banned the use of my helmet in official training sessions and competitions,” said Herashkevich, who was Ukraine’s flag bearer at Friday’s opening ceremony. on Instagram, external.
“A decision that breaks my heart. To feel that the IOC is betraying athletes who were part of the Olympic movement by not allowing them to be honoured on a playing field where these athletes will never step foot again.”
“Despite precedents in modern times and in the past when the IOC allowed such tributes, this time they decided to set special rules just for Ukraine.”
Heraskevich told Reuters that many of the people depicted on his helmet were athletes, including teenage weightlifter Alina Peregudova, boxer Pavlo Ishchenko and ice hockey player Oleksiy Loginov, and said some of them were his friends.
Heraskevich said Toshio Tsurunaga, the IOC representative in charge of communications between athletes, national Olympic committees and the IOC, had gone to the athletes’ village to tell them.
“They said it’s because of Rule 50,” Heraskevich told Reuters.
Rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter states that “No demonstrations or political, religious or racial propaganda of any kind are permitted in any Olympic venues or other areas.”
He said earlier on Monday that the IOC had contacted Ukraine’s Olympic Committee about the helmets.
The IOC said it had not received any official requests to use the helmets in the competition, which starts on February 12.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Hrayskevich “for reminding the world of the price of our struggle” in a post on X, external.
The post continued: “This truth cannot be inconvenient, inappropriate, or described as a ‘political spectacle at a sporting event’. It reminds the entire world what modern Russia is.”
Ukraine’s first skeleton athlete, Herashkevich, has signalled ‘no war in Ukraine’ at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, days ahead of Russia’s 2022 invasion of the country.
Rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter states: “No demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda of any kind is permitted in any Olympic venues or other areas.”
Heraskevich had said that his intention was to respect Olympic rules that prohibit political demonstrations at venues while raising awareness of the war in Ukraine at the Games.
Athletes from Russia and Belarus were largely banned from international sport following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but have since slowly returned to competition.
The IOC gave clarification that 13 athletes from Russia, external to compete as an individual neutral athlete (AIN) at Milan–Cortina.
BBC Sport has contacted the IOC for comment.
