Members of Ukraine’s Ski Jumping team with coaches and trainers in Whistler, BC
Lev Romanyshyn
For NP-UN, Vancouver
On January 30, 2023, 4 members (2 men and 2 women) of the Ukrainian Junior Ski Jumping Team, and their trainers and coaches, arrived in Vancouver, BC to compete in the FIS Junior (U23) World Ski Championships being held at Whistler, BC, from Feb 2/23 to Feb 5/23, where teams from 38 countries were participating.
Zhanna Hlukhova and Tetiana Pylypchuk
Those representing Ukraine were: Tetiana Pylypchuk, Zhanna Hlukhova, Denys Tsvietkov and Mykola Smyk. Their ages range from 16 to 18 and they are based out of Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil.
Greeting them at the airport were Orest Romanish and Ivanka Maik, who gifted them Ukrainian flags, being sold by the Vancouver branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Social Services (Суспільна Служба – Ванкувер).
Mykola Smyk, Ukrainian Ski Jumping Team
Quite by chance they also met a 16-year-old Ukrainian American, Maxim Hlyvka, who is a ski-jumper on the US team. In speaking with Maxim, they learned of his family’s ski-jumping lineage: his father, Oleh, is his coach, while his uncle, Volodymyr Hlyvka, competed for Ukraine in ski-jumping at the 1998 (Nagano) and 2002 (Salt Lake City) Olympic Games.
Maxim Hlyvka – US Ski Jumping Team
The individual competitions were held on Thursday, Feb 2, and the team competitions (men, women and mixed) on Feb 4 and 5. Countries represented included Canada, USA, Germany, Austria, Japan, China, Norway, France, Kazakhstan and Slovenia to name a few. All events took place at the Nordic events venue at the Whistler Olympic Park, approximately 2 hours drive north of Vancouver.
Panorama View of Whistler Ski Jump Venue
Orest Romanish attended the individual jumping competitions on Feb 2nd and reported that unfortunately, none of our Ukrainian, nor Ukrainian American, competitors made it to the podium, but the fact that they competed at the World Championships is a huge accomplishment. He also advised that we should bear in mind that their ages range from 16 to 18 and it was an Under 23 competition, so they were competing against older (in some cases, adult) and more experienced jumpers. “For our Ukrainians, I think that it was a wonderful learning experience,” said Romanish.
As a point of interest, at these competitions, ranking of the competitors is based on the scores of 5 judges who assess the jumpers on distance from take-off to landing and on their style: both their form in the air and their form on landing. With distance jumped being highly dependent on speed coming down the ramp, in the competitions at Whistler, most of the top 10 finalists, both men and women, were becoming airborne at almost 90 km/h and their jump distances were in the 95 m to 100 m range, i.e., pretty much the length of the football field at your local high school. Even those placing further back in the standings were flying off the ramp at speeds in the lower 80s km/h.
A Fan of the Ukrainian Ski Jumping Team
In doing a bit of research for this article, your correspondent learned that many of the jumpers, including Maxim and some on the Ukrainian team, started at a very early age (some as young as 5). He greatly admires their courage in competing in this sport, but he himself is happy enough, and does not regret, that in his younger days he kept his feet, and skis, firmly planted on terra firma, well, snow-covered terra firma.
Congratulations to all of our Ukrainian and Ukrainian American competitors for being chosen to compete at the World Championship level and best wishes for their future success in their chosen sport.
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