Retired tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky, 36, left his wife and children to join the army of volunteers for the war in Ukraine. The family stayed in Hungary, where they live, while Stakhovsky fights in Ukraine’s capital Kiev.
The athlete shared photos in combat gear on his social media and said, in the captions, that he “never imagined wearing a bulletproof vest in Kiev”.
Recently retired from the sport – he left the courts after an 18-year career in January, at the Australian Open –, Stakhovsky became the 31st tennis player in the world ranking.
He said in an interview with CNN television that the decision to return to his homeland was fraught with guilt and that neither he nor his wife, of Russian descent, told their three children, all under the age of seven, what the cause was. travel destination.
“I was born here, my grandparents are buried here and I want to have a story to tell my kids,” he told CNN. “Nobody here wants Russia to release them, they have freedom and democracy… And Russia wants to bring despair and poverty.”
Stakhovsky is not the first Ukrainian athlete to join the army. Boxers Oleksandr Usyk and Vasily Lomachenko also went to the front, as did Yuriy Vernydub, coach of Sheriff Tiraspol, a Moldovan team.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for civilian volunteers for the war.
Stakhovsky told CNN that civilians, like himself, have been given a basic lesson in shooting and that, although he doesn’t want to, he will shoot if necessary.
Other athlete athletes, such as biathlon competitor Yevhen Malyshev, 19, and footballers Vitalii Sapylo, 21, and Dmytro Martynek, 25, of Karpaty Lviv and FC Gostomel respectively, died in combat.
In addition to economic sanctions in response to the war, Russia and its athletes are suffering a range of punishments in sport and the arts.
The Russians and Belarusians – a country allied with Russia in the war – were excluded from the Paralympic Games, which have already started in Beijing. The athletes were already in China for the competitions.
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