Elizabeth Chevtchenko, a Ukrainian judo hopeful who was once a prisoner of the Russian army, was in the stands on Monday to watch her event.
Everyone comes to the Games with their own story. On Monday at the Champ-de-Mars judo arena but Chevtchenko's stands different. A frail 19-year-old girl in a blue T-shirt with yellow piping, she was watching the -57 kg competition intensely without revealing any apparent emotion. As if something inside her was broken or unable to surface. Elizabeth Chevtchenko has already lived through so much.
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She arrived in Paris the day before. "Liz" had left her home town of Chernihiv two days earlier, travelled to Kyiv, then caught a bus to Warsaw, then Berlin and finally Paris. Two days of travel, but what are two days of travel by bus to reach her dream. When you've been at war for two years. Liza films the crazy atmosphere when Frenchman Joan-Benjamin Gaba arrives on the tatami. " It's incredible," she says.
Just over two years ago, Elizabeth Chevtchenko was in hell. Literally.
Elizabeth Shevchenko: witness to a war crime
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Elizabeth was on her way to her morning training session at the judo club in Chernihiv. The city was soon surrounded. Elizabeth and her family thought about going to the small village of Ligadnie, where her grandparents live. But on March 3, the Russian 55th Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade entered the village.
The soldiers raided every house, shooting men in khaki who were only wearing hunting jackets. Elizabeth's uncle was shot dead before her very eyes. Her father was taken away. Sitting in grandstand C as France's Sarah-Léonie Cysique enters the ring to a sublime brouhaha, Elizabeth still has no news of her father. "I don't know anything, the authorities haven't told us anything.
Locked in a cellar with 300 people
This time it's the turn of Daria Bilodid, double world champion and bronze medallist in Tokyo, but in the -48 kg class. No time to blink as she qualifies by ippon. Liza smiles softly. No more. But in the last 8, the Ukrainian judoka, whom she sometimes rubs shoulders with at the Kyiv Olympic training centre, must face Japan's Aruka Funakubo.
After witnessing the disappearance of her uncle and father, Elizabeth, who has just turned 17, was taken with all the village inhabitants to the school cellars. 300 people, including 60 children, were kept there. They had to take turns sleeping, relieving themselves and breathing. After all, it's suffocating in these cramped quarters. Upstairs, in the open air, Russian soldiers get drunk. Sometimes they go down into the cellar to have some fun. Pull the pin out of a grenade and hand it to a child, who has to keep it shut or else....
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Days and nights go by in this in horror. The dead are piled up in a corner. Elizabeth, a top-level sportswoman, is certainly more predisposed to endure the unspeakable. She will stay there for a while before the Ukrainian army takes over the village. Seven people were killed. A few days later, she returned to her club to resume training. "It was better for me to commit myself totally to judo so that I wouldn't have to think." Two months later, she won the Ukrainian Junior Championship.
Bilodid and Funakubo fought a hard-fought battle. They made it all the way to the golden score. Daria, usually so solid, shows signs of fatigue. She lacks stamina and physical strength," notes Liza.
Finally, Bilodid is awarded a final penalty, a sign of elimination. She walks out of the ring, haggard, past Liza who looks at her blankly. Daria runs out of the Champ-de-Mars hall. She can be heard screaming in the distance. Liza is extremely disappointed but will enjoy the wonderful atmosphere of the Games afterwards.
"It's extraordinary to discover the Games. It's been a dream of mine. It gives me the motivation to train hard to qualify for the Los Angeles Games." A few minutes later, Daria passes by. She continues to weep with infinite sorrow. Before collapsing in despair on the sidewalk. " I'm worried about her psychological health," says Elizabeth.
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"Now I've seen the Games, I'll know in the morning why I'm going to training".
That evening, Elizabeth accepted an invitation from the House of Ukraine to meet boxer Oleksander Usyk. The following morning, after a visit to a large sports store on Place de la Madeleine, she will greet the national judo coach at the Olympic Village before boarding her Flixbus. For two more days of travel.
I'll arrive in Chernihiv on Thursday evening," she explains, "and head straight to training. I'm on school vacation, but my coach hasn't given me any time off for judo. Not a day except Sundays. But I accept it. It takes my mind off what happened. And now I've seen the Games, I'll know in the morning why I'm going to training." And never mind the sound of bombs in the distance.
(L'Équipe)