Rules vs. Remembrance.
Photo: Backer, D. I. (n.d.). Snowy Mountains. Dupe.
Wearing a helmet adorned with the faces of 24 fallen athletes during his skeleton race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, Vladyslav Heraskevych set out to honour those who were killed in the four years since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The games, officially known as Milano Cortina 2026, took place across Lombardy and Northeast Italy from the 6th to 22nd of February.
According to an interview conducted by the Guardian, Heraskevych said he knew many of the fallen athletes personally, so “it was important to bring them with me, because at some point of their lives, it was their goal to be at the Olympics too.”
Despite the touching message behind the honorary helmet, Heraskevych was disqualified from the games for allegedly violating the athlete expressions guidelines, despite the fact several other athletes were paying tribute to loved ones without penalty.
Heraskevych said he wanted to represent his country as best as possible and didn’t think simply using faces on his helmet would be labelled as political propaganda, given it contained no nationalistic symbols. He mentioned Russian athletes were able to wear Russian flags on their helmets without sanction, so was confused as to why he was disqualified for a non-sporting violation.
He was offered the option of wearing a black armband; however, he chose to accept disqualification and hopes to return to the Olympics in the future to compete in his helmet of choice and win gold.
Upon returning to Ukraine, he was awarded the Order of Freedom by Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and gifted $200,000 by the Shakhtar Donetsk President, the equivalent amount received by Ukrainian gold medallists. Heraskevych plans to put this money into a foundation to support Ukrainians.
“I’m not a hero. I don’t believe I did something heroic,” he said. “Of course, I’m very thankful for all of the support. But I believe the people on the helmet are the heroes. There are kids there who were not able to have an adult life.”
Ukranian athletes had expression limited elsewhere during the games, with freestyle skier Kateryna Kotsar forced to remove the quote “Be Brave Like Ukrainians” from her helmet. Furthermore, short track speed skater Oleh Handei had to remove a line from a poem by Lina Kostenko, a Ukrainian writer, from her equipment.
Ukraine also suffered when the International Paralympic Committee prevented the country’s Paralympic team from wearing their ceremonial uniform, stating it was political.
“The main design feature was a map of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, including all temporarily occupied territories”, according to The Kyiv Independent.
Heraskevych said in an interview with the Guardian that “war is a great reminder about what really matters. Sometimes in the modern world of social media people chase the wrong things. Expensive cars. A fancy life. The things that really don’t matter. After the war started, the happiest thing was just to see your friends in a good health, to hug each other, and to know your family members were OK.”
“This is what is really important, not material things.”
He has appealed his disqualification to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and is now collaborating with his legal team in preparation to challenge other court rulings.