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Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych wore a helmet with images of people killed in the war in his home country during a Winter Olympics training session in Cortina.<\/b><\/p>\n
Heraskevych had promised before the Games to use the event as a platform to keep attention on the conflict.<\/p>\n
“Some of them were my friends,” said Heraskevych, who was Ukraine’s flagbearer in the opening ceremony.<\/p>\n
He told Reuters that many of those pictured on his helmet were athletes including teenage weightlifter Alina Peregudova, boxer Pavlo Ishchenko and ice hockey player Oleksiy Loginov.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old said the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had contacted Ukraine’s Olympic Committee over the helmet.<\/p>\n
“It’s still being processed,” said Heraskevych – Ukraine’s first skeleton athlete.<\/p>\n
He held up a ‘No War in Ukraine’ sign at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, days before Russia’s 2022 invasion of the country.<\/p>\n
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.”<\/p>\n
Heraskevych had said he intended to respect Olympic rules which prohibit political demonstrations at venues while still raising awareness about the war in Ukraine at the Games.<\/p>\n
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 athletes from Russia and Belarus were largely banned from international sport, but there has since been a gradual return to competition.<\/p>\n