Ukrainian skeleton racer Heraskevych loses appeal against Olympic ban over helmet depicting war victims

Ukrainian skeleton racer Heraskevych loses appeal against Olympic ban over helmet depicting war victims



Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych poses with his helmet after a hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Milan on February 13, 2026. Heraskevych was barred from the Milan-Cortina Games after refusing to back down from wearing a helmet adorned with pictures of Ukrainian sportsmen and women killed since Russian invaded in 2022. — AFP pic

Saturday, 14 Feb 2026 10:41 AM MYT


MILAN, Feb 14 — Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych yesterday lost his appeal against his disqualification from the Winter Olympics for wearing a helmet adorned with pictures of Ukrainian war dead.

In the biggest controversy of the Milan-Cortina Games so far, Heraskevych was barred from his event on Thursday after refusing to ditch the helmet that features pictures of Ukrainian sportsmen and women killed since Russian forces invaded in 2022.

Gestures of a political nature during competition are forbidden under the Olympic charter.

Heraskevych, 27, took his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport sitting in Milan yesterday, telling reporters: “I hope truth will prevail and still I know that I was innocent.”


But CAS, sport’s top court, said it had denied Heraskevych’s appeal “against the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC)”.



CAS secretary general Matthieu Reeb said the court had “found that freedom of expression is guaranteed at the Olympic Games, but not on the field of play, which is a sacred principle”.

Reeb added that Annett Rombach, the German arbitrator who examined the appeal, “wished to state that she is fully sympathetic to Mr Heraskevych’s commemoration and to his attempt to raise awareness for the grief and devastation suffered by the Ukrainian people, and Ukrainian athletes because of the war”.


However, she concluded that Heraskevych’s helmet did violate the IOC’s Athlete Expression Guidelines.



Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych presents his helmet to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Munich, southern Germany, on the sidelines of the 62nd Munich Security Conference (MSC) on February 13, 2026. — AFP pic



Heraskevych said his disqualification was “frustrating” as he presented the helmet to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Munich later yesterday.

“Nobody was complaining about this helmet, so it was a purely discriminatory decision... and I should be there,” he added.

The IOC had tried to find a compromise with Heraskevych, allowing him to wear the helmet in training runs and when talking to the media. It proposed that he wear a black armband in competition, but he refused to back down.

Kirsty Coventry, the IOC president and a former Olympic gold medallist in swimming, met with Heraskevych, who was one of Ukraine’s flag bearers in the opening ceremony, early on Thursday in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade him to change his mind.

“My conversation with Vlad and his dad yesterday was a very good conversation, a very respectful conversation and you know, it was a time really for me and him to speak as athletes,” Coventry said yesterday.

“That was really important for me and I think for him, and I shared with him yesterday how the process went.”

But on the issue of political messages, “the rules are the rules as they stand today”, Coventry said. — AFP

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The IOC has been inconsistent in its expression of human rights, barring Russia for its war against Ukraine but remaining mute in Israeli case of genocidal brutalities.

If anything, the IOC should NOT interfere nor take sides against Russia in the country's war with Ukraine. But Israel's inhumanity against the Gazans, and now the West Bank Palestinians, has been so atrocious its vicious oppression even outdoes the White Afrikaans's Apartheid policy, yet the IOC has failed abysmally to act.

The Wankee Administration has shown a horribly bad example by not only tolerating Israel's inhumanity but has been deeply complicit in Israel's brutalities and genocidal oppressions against the Palestinians.

The Wanks has/had always set a bad record in such inhumane oppressions when it suits its own preferences. During the days of Apartheid South Afrika, the Truman Administration chose not to protest the anti-communist South African government's system of Apartheid in an effort to maintain an ally against the Soviet Union in southern Africa. Today again, Trump shows his personal proclivity for White South Africans and racist Israel. But the IOC must stand up and show some guts in barring Israel from all sporting involvements - the Jewish State no longer deserves to be involve in human activities.