Is it the
altitude,
or is it the hospitality?
Ukrainian athletes
find training conditions in Sun Valley ideal
By PETER
BOLTZ
Express Staff Writer
Ukrainian
winter Olympic athletes have found not only a training center in Sun
Valley, but a home away from home.
With the
2002 Winter Olympics just six months away, the Ukrainian men’s and women’s
Olympic biathlon teams have been using the Sun Valley area to prepare
themselves for a similar terrain and altitude in Utah’s Soldier Hollow
near Heber. They, and Ukrainian skaters – here for the first time –
came to Sun Valley the last two weeks of July.
Two of the women
biathletes, Nina Lemesh, 28, (prone left) and Nataliya
Tereshchenko, 25, prefer training with men’s coach Mykola Zots, standing at the telescope.
Oleh Babich, 20, fires from a standing position while Roman
Pryma, 21, takes off on a run to raise his heart and breathing rate. Express photo by Willy Cook.
Laryssa
Temple, who bears the title of attaché for Salt Lake City for all the
Ukrainian teams, is accompanying the athletes training in Sun Valley, and
acting as their translator. The men’s and women’s biathlon teams
consist of six competitors each. Also training here are two single’s
skaters and one team of pair’s skaters.
This was
the second visit for the male biathletes, who were here in February, and
the third for the female biathletes, who were here in September and with
the men in February. Both biathlon teams left Sun Valley at the end of
July, but will return in January. The skaters will be practicing at Sun
Valley’s indoor rink until Aug. 20.
Men’s
biathlete coach Mykola Zots said Sun Valley is "perfect for
training" because the altitude and terrain are similar to Soldier
Hollow, where the Olympic biathlon competition will be held.
While the
biathletes were not affected much by Sun Valley’s 6,000-foot altitude,
the Ukrainian skaters have.
Pair’s
coach Halyna Kukhar said it was the first time Aliona Savchenko and
Stanislav Morozov have trained at high altitude.
Initially,
the two were strongly affected while training in this environment, Kukhar
said.
Ukrainian Olympic biathlete Olena Petrova,
28, is considered the best shot on the women’s team. On her right shoulder is a tattoo with the Egyptian symbol for success.
Express photo by Willy Cook
"At
first, it was hard for them to breathe, and they lost some of their
coordination. They would do jumps and have a hard time orienting
themselves."
After about
12 days, she said the two started to acclimatize. Now they are doing much
better.
The single’s
coach, Marina Amirkhanova, said her two skaters, Elena Liashenko and
Vitalii Danilchenko, also had problems with the altitude.
"It
was very bad for them," she said. "Elena had a sore throat and
bloody nose for the first few days. But now I think they have
adapted."
The
skaters, who will be here until Aug. 20 are singles Elena Liashenko, 23,
and Vitalii Danilchenko, 21; and the pair Aliona Savchenko, 17, and
Stanislav Morozov, 21.
Temple said
if people wanted to watch the skaters practice, they are welcome to come
to the Sun Valley indoor rink at 9:20 p.m. on weekdays.
Meanwhile,
two of the female biathletes, Nina Lemesh and Nataliya Tereshchenko, have
chosen to train with the men instead of the women.
Coach Zots
said "these athletes, at their level especially in an Olympic year,
can choose the system of training they want. The coaches will accommodate
their wishes."
Without
getting into the complexities of the systems, Zots identified two major
training systems for biathletes, the old Soviet system and the German.
"But
after the fall of the USSR there were a lot of independent teams, and so
individual coaches diversified," Zots said.
Now, many
coaches use a hybrid system that mixes the Soviet with the German system
and some of their own methods.
Women’s
coach Nadiya Bilova agreed.
"Every
coach has his own method," she said. "The athletes glean the
benefit of each other’s coaches."
As serious
and disciplined as these Ukrainians are, they need their fun, which,
Temple said, is a word adopted into the Ukrainian language.
"Whenever
we come to Sun Valley, we have fun," Bilova said. "Everyone is
so interested in us. Everyone stops and asks us who we are and wishes us
well."
The
Ukrainians found their way to Sun Valley mostly through the efforts of
Temple, a Ukrainian-American married to an American.
Temple, who
has served as an attaché, translator and organizer for the team for the
past nine years, said that she had been "working on" getting the
Ukrainian team to train in Sun Valley because "it is what the
athletes need" to prepare for 2002.
She said
once Sun Valley Co. agreed to partly host the team, individuals,
businesses and organizations joined in to help.
The opening
ceremony for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City is Feb. 8.