Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych was determined to compete in a helmet that depicted fellow athletes and civilians killed during the Russian invasion of his country.
The International Olympic Committee was desperate for him to find another way of expressing his grief.
In the end, Mr. Heraskevych would not be dissuaded, so his accreditation to compete in the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics was withdrawn on Thursday morning shortly before his first run. The IOC says the helmet violates its rules, which prohibit athletes from engaging in messaging on the field of play, in the Olympic village, or during medal ceremonies. Mr. Heraskevych said he is considering appealing the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Why We Wrote This
IOC rules prohibit athletes from engaging in messaging on the field of play, in the Olympic village, or during medal ceremonies. Still, a Ukrainian Olympian was determined to compete honoring those who had lost their lives at home.
Why did the IOC take such a strong stand?
The IOC repeatedly insisted that it had no issue with Mr. Heraskevych’s message, only where and when he intended to express it. The IOC is adamant that the field of play during competitions be kept free of any sort of messaging.
Partly, the IOC is concerned about a slippery slope toward “chaos.”
“There are 130 conflicts going on in the world. We cannot have 130 different conflicts featured, however terrible they are, during the field of play, during the actual competition,” IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said during a news conference.
One concern is that messaging could crowd out the actual sport, with athletes using the field of play to promote countless causes during the sporting events. But there is also concern that such messages could draw the IOC into various conflicts, threatening its desire to remain neutral.
“As a sporting organization, once we start taking stands against wars and conflicts, there is no end,” Mr. Adams said Thursday. “If we start reflecting all those conflicts in the world on the sporting field, there will be no sport.”
Athletes also desire to keep the field of play pure. The IOC rules came from a commission created in 2021 that included more than 3,500 athletes. To many, they are a protection. “We also have to consider with some countries … the pressure that is put on athletes to express views they may not necessarily agree with,” Mr. Adams said.
Has the IOC enforced its rules consistently?
Mr. Heraskevych suggests the IOC is treating him unfairly. He cites American figure skater Maxim Naumov, who held up a picture of his late parents after his performance in the men’s short program Tuesday. His parents died in a January 2025 plane crash. Mr. Heraskevych calls his helmet a “helmet of remembrance.”
Other recent examples include an Israeli judoka, Peter Paltchik, who appeared to kiss a military flag as he celebrated a medal during the 2024 Paris Olympics, and a German field hockey player, Nike Lorenz, who competed at the 2021 Tokyo Games wearing a rainbow band around her ankle in support of LGBTQ+ people around the world.
None were officially sanctioned.
A “U.S. figure skater [and others] didn’t face the same things,” Mr. Heraskevych said at a Thursday morning news conference. “So, suddenly, just a Ukrainian athlete in this Olympic Games will be disqualified for this helmet, which is not violating any rules.”
The IOC has drawn a distinction between Mr. Naumov’s show of grief and Mr. Heraskevych’s, saying the crucial difference is that Mr. Naumov waited until after he left the field of play. They say Mr. Heraskevych was welcome to do the same.
Ms. Lorenz received approval for her rainbow ankle band, but critics more generally say that efforts at neutrality tend to reinforce inequalities faced by minorities and marginalized people. “The ability to stay neutral in times of oppression is an expression of privilege that is granted only to those in whose image the Games were created,” said a U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s council on racial and social justice in 2021.
There also appears to be an element of “acting first and asking permission later.” In the case of the Israeli judoka, the IOC did contact the Israeli Olympic Committee afterward to register its concern. By contrast, with Mr. Heraskevych, “It was the clear intention of him to do it, we asked him not to do it, we gave him alternatives … and he still carried on,” Mr. Adams said on Thursday.
What was done to try to avoid this outcome?
The IOC told Mr. Heraskevych numerous times – in person and by written warning – that his helmet was in violation of the rules for athlete expression, and he would not be allowed to race in it. That culminated with the president of the IOC, Kirsty Coventry, meeting with Mr. Heraskevych at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, two hours before the start of the race.
Ms. Coventry, a former Olympic swimmer for Zimbabwe and chair of the athletes’ commission that devised the new rules, said Mr. Heraskevych could carry his helmet after the race as he did media interviews. He was also offered the opportunity to wear a black armband during the race, a widely recognized gesture of mourning in sports.
“Sadly, we’ve not been able to come to that solution. I really wanted to see him race today. It’s been an emotional morning,” she said after the meeting.
Mr. Heraskevych felt the emotion, too. “Hard to put into words,” he said. “Emptiness, some kind of.”
He said he hoped television channels, in their coverage of the event, would honor the men and women on his helmet by showing pictures of him during his training runs, during which he was allowed to wear the helmet.
“I believe they deserve this moment.”