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‘This tournament is a tribute to him’

KYIV — Young soccer players in the city of Kharkiv are grieving over the death of their coach, killed by a Russian shell last week in an incident that highlights the heavy toll the war is inflicting on all areas of Ukrainian society, including sport.

“It hurt so much, it is as if I had lost a father,” said player Danil Kaskov, taking part in a match staged in honour of Andrii Doroshev, who died on June 27 when shells slammed into a residential area of Ukraine’s second biggest city.

“I hope he is watching over us from above, that we can make him proud. This tournament is a tribute to him, all the trophies are in his memory. Everything is for him,” he told Reuters.

Long proud of its achievements in gymnastics, boxing, soccer and other sports, Ukraine is counting the cost of the war, now into its fifth month, on its sporting infrastructure and on its sportsmen and women.

“More than 100,000 Ukrainian sportsmen have been deprived of any opportunity to train, hundreds of Ukrainian sports facilities have been destroyed,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday while hosting the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for talks in Kyiv.

“Many Ukrainian sportsmen joined the armed forces to protect our country, to defend it on the battlefield. Eighty-nine sportsmen and coaches have been killed in fighting, 13 have been captured and are being held captive by the Russians,” he said.

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2022-07-05T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-07-05T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/281771337892033

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