CAMBRIDGE – For the primary time, the Ukrainian nationwide rowing staff will compete within the Head of the Charles Regatta this weekend.
It is a rower’s dream to compete right here and for this staff it is an expertise that goes past the game.
“For us to be right here in Boston it is an opportunity to speak with individuals and to inform our tales and likewise to indicate the world we’re nonetheless alive,” rower Olena Buryak instructed WBZ-TV.
When Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February, Buryak fled to Poland. Her husband, a world file holder and Olympian, remains to be there combating for freedom.
“Whenever you write to your pals of kin ‘How are you immediately?’ and so they do not reply for a number of hours, it is heartbreaking,” stated Buryak.
The rowers and coaches are all displaced from their dwelling nation so they have been coaching collectively in Bulgaria. This weekend they are going to compete collectively on the Charles River amongst 11,000 rowers from 27 totally different nations, proud to put on the Ukrainian flag.
The staff is right here because of the pinnacle rowing coach at Simmons College who was as soon as their teammate. Andrii Ivanchuk requested the Head of the Charles to convey the staff right here and so they did, all bills lined with assist from Delta Airways and the Cambridge Workplace of Tourism.
“It is actually essential for them. They’re ambassadors of Ukraine right here. They need to remind the entire world the battle remains to be taking place,” stated Ivanchuk.
Buryak says Ukrainians are grateful for all of the assist.
“Please proceed to assist us. It (provides) us a heat coronary heart,” she stated.
Ivanchuk is asking the native Ukrainian group to return out this weekend to assist the staff.
