At the world indoor track and field championships this spring, Australia’s Eleanor Patterson finished second to Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh in the high jump - and showed off fingernails painted in the colors of Ukraine’s flag at the medal ceremony. At the Beijing Olympics this past winter, skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych held up a sign reading “No War in Ukraine” immediately after he finished a run down the track. Over the last seven months, they have been particularly poignant - both for Ukrainians and for those supporting Ukrainians. Sports, particularly on the international stage, typically are a rallying point for any country. We think anybody can beat anybody in this tournament." “We're playing extremely hard," Len said. Ukraine, long shots entering the tournament, is now teeming with confidence. If Ukraine tops Poland, a quarterfinal matchup against the Slovenia-Belgium winner awaits Slovenia, led by Luka Doncic, is the reigning EuroBasket champion. It’s now a single-elimination tournament, except for those clubs who make the semifinals the loser of those semifinal games will play in a third-place game before the championship matchup. “Stop killing the people.”Īll games in the knockout stage will be played in Berlin. Lukashov was asked if Ukraine’s team had a message to the world. We’re going to do everything we can to show the best game.
“It’s not easy to focus just on basketball knowing what’s happening now in our country. “It’s a really difficult time for Ukraine, for our country and also for our team,” point guard Denys Lukashov said. Ukraine went 3-2 in the group stage and those games - players hope - gave the people in their homeland, which has been reeling from Russia’s invasion since February, another bit of national pride. Ukraine is one of the last 16 teams left in the EuroBasket tournament, which resumes with the start of the knockout stage in Berlin on Saturday. That’s the Ukrainian way right now.Īnd the approach, simple as it sounds, worked. Let’s fight, out of respect for the country.”įight. There’s a lot of stuff going on back home, and we said we had to play harder. “That's when we thought about our fans back home,” said Ukraine center Alex Len, who plays for the NBA's Sacramento Kings.
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