MILAN — The International Olympic Committee may well disqualify Vladyslav Heraskevych for ignoring its warning not to wear a helmet commemorating 24 of the more than 500 Ukrainian athletes who’ve lost their lives in the face of a Russian invasion that’s been ongoing since 2022. Still, if the 27-year-old skeleton athlete intended to deliver a message about what’s in his heart and in his soul, possibly at the expense of being disqualified, it won’t make a difference what the IOC decides. He’ll have succeeded in getting his message out.
Heraskevych’s bravery is nothing compared to what his lost friends faced. Perhaps that’s the entire point. Should he be disallowed from competing on Thursday, he will be remembered in Ukraine as an athlete who took a bold stand, who put the love of his countrymen over the pursuit of gold, silver or bronze. The rest of the world? Whatever side of the issue you’re on, you have to admit it’s a principled stand.
This is as much about legalese and interpretation as right vs. wrong. Yes, the IOC has a rule — Article 50.2 of the Olympic Charter — which states that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.” Yes, supporters of Heraskevych argue he’s using the photos that appear on what he calls his “helmet of memory” to honor lost loved ones, not unlike the manner in which the American figure skater Maxim Naumov of the Skating Club of Boston paid tribute to his late parents before his short program on Tuesday night.
Naumov’s parents died a little more than a year ago in the midair collision of American Airlines Flight 5342 and a United States Army helicopter over the Potomac River. Before Naumov skated, a message he had crafted — “Mom and Dad, this is for you” — appeared on the video screens above the ice. After he skated, he held a photo of Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, occasionally pulling it to his chest.
To compare this with Heraskevych’s plight strikes me as disrespectful to Naumov. Not that there aren’t similarities — there clearly are — but Naumov shouldn’t be dragged into an Olympic controversy as a chess piece in a debate over whataboutism. Naumov’s powerful words Tuesday night about doing things “out of love, not fear,” notwithstanding that he’s a 24-year-old who’ll likely face many challenges in his life. For now, though, he’s a first-time Olympian whose challenge is to skate a long program that would have made his parents proud. Let’s leave him out of this Heraskevych debate.
If the IOC is taking a stab at diplomacy here, Heraskevych isn’t playing along. (Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
Heraskevych wore his helmet during practice Wednesday afternoon in Cortina d’Ampezzo, as he has been doing all along. This was just hours after a news conference in Milan in which Mark Adams, the IOC’s chief spokesman, said: “We want him to compete. We really want him to have his moment. We want all athletes to have their moment. And that’s the point. We want all athletes to have a level playing field.”
But, Adams said: “Let me be clear, it’s not the message, it’s the place that counts.”
Asked about Naumov’s tribute to his parents, Adams said, “It was a very emotional, very human gesture, and I think everyone can understand it.”
And that’s the problem when either side invokes Naumov, since what Heraskevych is doing is a very emotional, very human gesture that I think everyone can understand.
If the IOC is taking a stab at diplomacy here, Heraskevych isn’t playing along. In a post on his X account, he wrote, “Am I showing ‘conflict’ on the helmet? I’m showing athletes who died since the last Winter Olympic Games.”
In the same post, Heraskevych wrote: “By which details did (Adams) determine that the helmet is showing a conflict? The whole world sees ‘memory,’ but he sees a conflict?” This was in response to Adams’ remark that, “There are 130 conflicts going on in the world. We cannot have 130 different conflicts featured, no matter how terrible they are, on the field of play, during the actual competition.”
Heraskevych could always change course a little. He could, for instance, wear a black armband, as has been suggested by the IOC, even though it goes against the letter of the rule. “We have said to him that we will make an exception so he can express his mourning in this way,” Adams said.
Heraskevych could wear his “helmet of memory” in the mixed zone after he competes, as well as in other media appearances moving forward. Not to be flip here, but he could take the helmet on a world tour.
It doesn’t appear, though, that compromise is a possibility. Nor does it appear the IOC will back down. If it disqualifies Heraskevych, know this: It’s just a mark in a ledger. It’s bookkeeping.
But history has a way of looking past the bookkeeping. The day may come when Vladyslav Heraskevych is remembered only for taking a spirited, emotional — indeed, stubborn — stand at the 2026 Winter Olympics … accompanied by an oh-by-the-way that he was disqualified for doing so.